“It’s torn.”

“It’s broken.”

Very few times are those words a ‘good thing,’ but as a body marking in a Saint Bernard,  a “torn” or “broken” mantle is a normal and accepted coat pattern variation equal in value to other recognized patterns like solid mantles or splash coats. In short, it’s not a negative trait in the breed standard.

To be clear, there are four color patterns in this breed: Mantle, full mantle, a torn mantle, and splash coats, and simply put, each describes the amount (and location) of color covering the dog. In a mantle Saint Bernard, a primarily solid-colored coat covers most of the dog’s back and flanks resembling a “cape” or mantle over the dog. In a full mantle extended, a Saint’s solid color covers a large portion of the dog’s body, including the back, flanks, and possibly extending down the sides and over the shoulders. In a splash-coated Saint Bernard, his or her primarily white coat has with patches or “splashes” of color in varying size and location distributed across their body. In a torn mantle, the dog has additional white patches as if the dog has “tears” in the coat that expose the white coat underneath.

A torn mantle – photo by Alan Levine/pxhere

While body markings may impact one’s perception of a dog’s proportions, a good show judge will quickly learn what a dog’s proportions actually are with a hands-on examination.  Giving these patterns consideration in a show ring should be trivial, but ascertaining proportions by getting one’s hands on the dog is not!

We love discovering the terms that describe our breeds and call these factoid features, “there’s a name for that”

Image: Postcard from between 1892 – 1906. Photo from Rijksmuseum is in the public domain