Barry (dog)

Barry worked for the Great St Bernard Hospice from 1800 and is credited with saving more than 40 people, although the count has shifted over the years. The famous ending, in which a lost soldier mistook him for a wolf and killed him, is false: a canon of the hospice took him to Bern to retire, and he died there aged 14. His body is still on show at the Natural History Museum of Bern, which also doubts the tale of the boy carried to safety on his back. Look closely and you will see a lighter dog than the modern St Bernard; his skull was even reshaped in 1923 to match the breed of that day.