Newfoundland vs Saint Bernard: Heavy Heads, Different Coats

A Newfoundland and a Saint Bernard look alike because both are giant working dogs with a massive head, dropped ears, and heavy flews, but the stop, the muzzle, the forehead, and the coat separate them. PetMatch holds 269 Newfoundlands and 322 Saint Bernards in the match pool right now, among 53,125 pets across 70 breeds.

Why the heavy heads overlap

Both standards ask for a powerful head on a heavily boned dog. The Newfoundland head is massive, with a broad skull, a slightly arched crown, and a strongly developed occiput. The Saint Bernard skull is massive and wide, slightly arched, with high cheekbones. With nothing in the frame for scale, those two heads can pass for one another, and a long-coated Saint makes that easier.

The long coat has a Newfoundland in its history. The American Kennel Club's history of the Saint Bernard says that in the 1830s the monks at the Great St. Bernard Pass bred their short-haired hospice dogs to Newfoundlands, hoping a longer coat would stand the Alpine cold. The longer hair clotted with ice, so the monks gave those dogs to people in the surrounding valleys, and the rough Saint spread from there. The AKC recognized the Newfoundland in 1886 and the Saint Bernard in 1885. Both sit in the Working Group.

Stop, muzzle, and forehead

The stop is the clearest tell. On a Newfoundland the slope is moderate. A well-developed brow can make it look abrupt in profile, and the standard still calls it moderate. The forehead and face are smooth and free of wrinkles. On a Saint Bernard the slope from the skull to the muzzle is sudden and rather steep. A furrow runs over the skull from between the eyes, and wrinkles on the forehead converge toward that furrow, showing more when the dog is alert. A smooth forehead is the Newfoundland. Wrinkles gathered toward a center furrow are the Saint.

The muzzle follows that split. A Newfoundland muzzle is clean-cut, broad, and deep, with depth and length about equal. The distance from the nose to the stop is shorter than the distance from the stop to the occiput, and the bridge is straight or only slightly arched. A Saint Bernard muzzle is short, does not taper, and is deeper at the root than it is long. The upper flews are strongly developed and slightly overhanging.

Ears hang close on both dogs. A Newfoundland ear is relatively small, triangular, and rounded at the tip, set level with or slightly above the brow. A Saint ear is medium-sized and rather high set. It stands slightly away at the base, then drops in a sharp bend and clings to the head. Longer hair at the base of a rough Saint's ear widens that outline. Newfoundland eyes are dark brown, relatively small, deep-set, and wide apart. Saint eyes are dark brown, medium, set toward the front, and moderately deep.

A headshot has no scale. Newfoundland males average 28 inches and about 130 to 150 pounds, females 26 inches and 100 to 120. Saint males are listed at 28 to 30 inches and 140 to 180 pounds, females at 26 to 28 inches and 120 to 140, above a minimum of 27.5 inches for dogs and 25.5 for bitches. The ranges overlap. Shoot head-on in open shade, with both eyes and the stop in frame, as in best photos for a pet twin.

Two coats over a shared outline

An adult Newfoundland has a flat, water-resistant double coat. The outer coat is coarse and moderately long, straight or waved, with short fine hair on the face and muzzle. Colors are black, brown, gray, and white and black. White on the chin, chest, toes, or tail tip is typical on a solid dog. The white-and-black pattern is the Landseer, named for the painter Sir Edwin Landseer: a white base, a black head or a black head with white on the muzzle, a black saddle, and black on the rump.

A Saint Bernard must carry white. Required white sits on the chest, the feet, the tail tip, a noseband, and a collar or a spot on the nape. A blaze is very desirable, and dark shading on the head and ears is the favored mask. Red, brown-yellow, and brindle with white markings are allowed. The short coat is dense and smooth. The long coat is medium, plain to slightly wavy, and neither rolled, curly, nor shaggy, with short hair on the face and ears. A Landseer beside a heavily marked rough Saint still fools a glance, because both faces can be dark around the eyes and broken by white. Marking color, the shorter Saint muzzle, and the steeper stop separate that pair.

What a photo matcher compares

PetMatch compares skull width, stop depth, muzzle length against the skull, ear set, forehead wrinkles, and where the white sits. On a solid black Newfoundland the coat gives the camera little contrast, so skull, muzzle, and ear set do more of the ranking. On a Saint the blaze and the mask move more of the frame than coat length does, and a rough coat widens the jaw and the ear. The Newfoundland twin finder covers that black-coat ranking. A free account ranks the closest faces in both pools.