Presbyterian Dog

I had doubted that Baby was really a Collie/St. Bernard mix as I'd been told, because I didn't think she looked like a Saint Bernard and she isn't really a big dog. But today I found some pictures of St. Bernard/Border Collie crosses. Some of them do look pretty similar to Baby. Some of them are even about her size--looks like they can vary a lot depending on which genes they got from which parents. :) So maybe that really is what she is.

Maybe by "black St. Bernard" the previous owner meant one of the St. Bernards with a lot of black on his face, which is one of the standard colors. And some mismarked St. Bernards are white with black markings, it appears, or even mainly black.

So I guess that would actually make Baby a Presbyterian, according to Mark Twain.

A Dog's Tail by Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens) starts:

"My father was a St. Bernard, my mother was a collie, but I am a Presbyterian. This is what my mother told me, I do not know these nice distinctions myself. To me they are only fine large words meaning nothing. My mother had a fondness for such; she liked to say them, and see other dogs look surprised and envious, as wondering how she got so much education. But, indeed, it was not real education; it was only show: she got the words by listening in the dining-room and drawing-room . . . "