In Defense of the Large Dog

Big dogs get a bad rap, and honestly, it makes no sense. Walk through any animal shelter and you’ll notice a pattern: the small dogs go fast. The medium dogs go fairly fast. And the big dogs? The big dogs sit there, wagging hopefully, watching family after family walk past them toward the nearest available Chihuahua. It’s a little heartbreaking, and it is also, we would argue, a massive mistake.

So today, I’m here to make the case for them.

Bernadette just wants to be in your lap at all times. Is that so wrong?

Colossal Canines: A Brief History

Large dogs didn’t just appear recently to alarm people in dog parks. They have been devoted human companions for thousands of years, and the historical record on this is genuinely heartwarming. There are many such examples of the gentleness, heroism, and loyalty of large dogs across time from the world over.

Le chanoine Jacquier et les chiens, winter 1935 © Maison hospitalière du Grand-Saint-Bernard

Saint Bernards spent centuries working with monks at the Great St. Bernard Hospice in the Swiss Alps, trekking through avalanche terrain to find buried travelers and dig them out of the snow. The most famous of them, a dog named Barry, is credited with saving more than 40 lives in the early 1800s. The dogs' story at the hospice stretches back further than Barry; as the hospice itself was founded around 1050 by Saint Bernard of Menthon, an archdeacon who saw travelers arriving terrorized and distressed and decided to create a refuge at the pass. Sometime between 1660 and 1670, the monks acquired their first Saint Bernards, descendants of mastiff-like dogs brought to the region by the Romans, originally to serve as watchdogs and companions. Over time, the monks discovered the dogs' extraordinary utility in winter: their broad chests helped clear paths for travelers, and their tremendous sense of smell allowed them to locate people buried deep beneath the snow. They were typically sent out in small groups, and when one dog found a buried traveler and dug through the snow to lie on top of them for warmth, another would return to the hospice to alert the monks.

Barry der Menschenretter (roughly translated as Barry the people-rescuer) was born at the hospice in 1800 and worked there for twelve years. His most famous rescue involved a young boy he found asleep in a cavern of ice. Barry warmed him by licking him, coaxed him onto his back, and carried him to safety. So great was his renown that his name became synonymous with the breed itself, and an old Swiss nickname for Saint Bernards was simply "Barryhund." Barry retired to Bern in 1812 and passed away two years later. His legacy endures: the Barry Foundation in Martigny continues the monks' tradition of naming one puppy per year "Barry" in his honor, and those dogs are now trained as therapy dogs, a gentler calling, but a fitting continuation of a breed defined by its devotion to human welfare.

Barry the famous mountain rescue dog carrying a small child depicted on an old postcard. Artist unknown.

Then there are Newfoundlands, which are essentially the size of a small sedan and twice as warm. Sailors brought them on North Atlantic voyages because they would jump into freezing water to rescue anyone who went overboard, which is a level of professional dedication most of us will never match. Lord Byron loved his Newfoundland, Boatswain, so profoundly that when the dog died of rabies, he wrote him a poem that was inscribed on the dog’s headstone. The poem describes Boatswain as having “beauty without vanity, strength without insolence, courage without ferocity, and all the virtues of man without his vices.” The final line of his ode to Boatswain is perhaps the most haunting: “To mark a friend's remains these stones arise; I never knew but one, and here he lies.”

An 1808 painting of Boatswain, Lord Byron's beloved companion. Photo courtesy of Nottingham City Museum and Galleries.

Hachikō was born on a farm in Akita Prefecture in late 1923, and might have lived out an ordinary life there had he not been brought to Tokyo the following year by Hidesaburō Ueno, a professor at the Tokyo Imperial University. The two fell into a simple daily rhythm: Ueno would leave for work each morning and Hachikō would meet him at Shibuya Station each evening when he returned. It was an unremarkable routine, the kind that forms quietly between a person and a dog, and it lasted just over a year. In May 1925, Ueno suffered a cerebral hemorrhage at work and never came home. He was forty-nine years old. Hachikō went to the station anyway.

He kept going for nearly ten years. Every day, the Akita returned to Shibuya Station and waited on the platform where Ueno's train used to arrive. In the early years he was treated poorly, shooed away and regarded as a nuisance, and he came back regardless. When a former student of Ueno's wrote about him in a national newspaper, Hachikō became famous overnight, and the cruelty gave way to affection, vendors feeding him and commuters going out of their way to greet him. There is a bronze statue of him at Shibuya Station now, one of the most visited landmarks in Tokyo.

Japanese actor Masao Inoue feeding Hachikō in 1933. Photographer unknown.

Robert the Bruce spent much of the early 14th century as a man on the run, driven into hiding across the Scottish Highlands and islands while English forces under Edward I relentlessly pursued him. Among the ways Edward's soldiers tracked him was Donnchadh (Dun-ah-ka), a prized bloodhound who had once belonged to Robert himself. The dog followed his former master's scent faithfully through the wilderness, leading the English soldiers straight to where Bruce was concealed. But when Donnchadh finally found him, rather than betray the man who had raised him, the hound turned on the soldiers long enough to buy the man enough time to escape. Robert the Bruce went on to lead the Scots to victory at Bannockburn in 1314 and secure Scottish independence, and a major thread of that outcome ran through a dog who chose his master over his captors.

Depiction of the faithful bloodhound, Donnchadh. Artist unknown.

Warranted Fears, Mercilessly Dispatched

“But I live in a small place.”

Here is something shelter staff and dedicated owners will tell you with barely concealed glee: Big dogs make excellent couch ornaments and area rugs. Greyhounds, which are the fastest dogs alive, spend approximately 22 hours a day asleep. Mastiffs have been described, lovingly, as draft animals who have given up. Many of the largest breeds are shockingly calm indoors, content to take up most of the sofa and ask for very little beyond a daily walk and your full emotional attention.

A bored Jack Russell Terrier or Pomeranian might dismantle your kitchen. A content large dog will simply be there, enormous and peaceful, like a very affectionate boulder.

“Won’t they pull me down the street?”

A well-trained dog of any size walks nicely on a leash. Big dogs are, in fact, often easier to train than small ones, partly because people tend to actually train them, and partly because larger breeds are frequently bred to work closely with humans and genuinely want to cooperate. Great Pyrenees, Labrador Retrievers, Standard Poodles, German Shepherds: none of these are small, and all of them are perennially at the top of trainability lists. If you are nervous about handling a bigger dog, our trained staff are excellent at matching people with dogs whose energy and temperament fit their lifestyle.

“Are they safe with my kids?”

Many large breeds are exceptionally gentle with children, and the history here is long. The Victorian nickname for Newfoundlands was literally “the nanny dog.” J.M. Barrie, the author of Peter Pan, wrote Nana the nanny-dog because he watched his own Newfie be careful and tender with small humans. This is, of course, not universal, and no dog should be left alone with young children regardless of size or breed. But the idea that big automatically means dangerous is simply not supported by the evidence, or by the number of gentle giants currently snoozing in our kennels.

Otis, one of our HLCR resident extra large teddy bears, does his signature happy flop.

The Gift That Keeps On Giving

People who adopt big dogs will tell you that there is nothing quite like a large dog deciding you are their person. That the specific weight of a big dog’s head on your knee after a rough day is its own category of comfort. That walking with a large dog beside you on a trail feels like having a very calm, very loyal friend who is also, incidentally, built like a small bear.

They will also tell you about the chaos, because big dogs are frequently hilarious. They do not know how large they are. They sit on things. They misjudge doorways. They attempt to be lap dogs with complete sincerity and zero spatial awareness. A 100-pound dog who believes he is a lap dog is a treasure, honestly.

And almost everyone says the same thing when you ask them about it: that they are very glad they gave their supersized furbabies a chance.

Sparky enjoys car rides, shopping, and primetime TV.

The Courage to Take Up Space

There are large dogs in our shelter right now who are waiting with considerably more patience and optimism than the situation warrants. Some of them had families and lost them through circumstances that had nothing to do with anything they did wrong. Some just ended up here and are making the best of it. All of them would like a home, a bed, and someone to follow around the house devotedly for the foreseeable future.

We’d love for you to come meet them. Not to adopt anyone you’re not ready for, just to say hello. Let a big dog look at you with that steady, particular attention that big dogs have and see what happens. Maybe get slobbered on, maybe not. No promises. Let's recap: Barry walked into avalanche fields for over a decade and never once weighed the cost. Boatswain's steady companionship inspired an epitaph so raw and so devastating that it has remained as poignant now as when it was written more than two hundred years ago. Hachikō continued to return to the same train station platform every day for nearly ten years, patiently waiting his long lost owner's return until he too perished. And Donnchadh found his master at the end of a trail laid by his master's enemies, and chose, in whatever way a dog chooses anything, to protect him still. Even so, the dogs mentioned above weren't exceptional animals because they performed exceptional acts. What each of them had in common was not heroism in any complicated sense. It was simply that they loved without condition, served without agenda, and asked for almost nothing at all in return. Today, a little piece of those legacies rests within the heart of all dogs, big and small alike. The least we can do is introduce ourselves. Check out our adoptable dogs online and contact us to schedule a meet and greet.

Our team is here to help you find the right fit.

Stella is ready to go home. She's wondering what the hold up is.