Waldeck Kennels – A Driving Force in St. Bernards

By Amy Fernandez

People enter this game for countless reasons. Millions of back stories are intertwined with that “In it to win it” mantra. They add flavor, but a competitive nature and a passion for dogs are the only ingredients needed to jumpstart that fierce drive. And it doesn’t come with any warnings.

“Waldeck is the year’s greatest sensation of the dog game in the United States” Audience attention was guaranteed when Arthur Fredrick Jones threw that out to AKC Gazette readers. It truly was the hottest development to hit the St. Bernard world for decades. “This establishment is climbing the heights with as little effort and as quickly as a modern multi-cylindered motorcar flies up grades that once were considered almost insurmountable by mechanical means. But the comparison ends there. Engineers strove for successful propulsion; the Forbrigers reached their first eminence by chance, and so quickly that it was breathtaking.” That stunning proclamation in the April 1933 Gazette followed the March cover featuring Waldeck’s newly-crowned Ch. Hercuveen Invincible, which also happened to be Waldeck’s first St. Bernard and first show dog.

No one ever forgets that first intoxicating win. The adrenaline rush as pleasure hormones cascade through the brain drenching those neurons with signals of pure joy. It’s powerful stuff, and one thing for sure, one taste is never enough. The long hard road that led up to that glorious moment generally keeps expectations tethered to reality at that point. Usually, but not always.

That issue doesn’t get much attention even though it frequently means the difference between a quick bailout and a lifetime commitment to this sport. Ironically, few breeds have led fanciers down the wrong path more frequently than that mythologized icon of canine nobility, the Saint Bernard.

Saint Bernard ownership can be a dream come true for those who are realistic and prepared for the responsibility. At first, it was all that and more for the Forbriger family. German immigrant Paul Forbriger was living the dream in 1931. By the end of WWI hisluxury import business was generating an avalanche of cash. His lovely wife had given him three gorgeous daughters and their Brooklyn home qualified as a mcmansion by today’s standards. Better yet, it was a stone’s throw from midtown Manhattan. Their brand new neighborhood had been converted from farmland less than a decade earlier.

When they arrived in Flatbush back in 1921 that present day epicenter of urban blight was an expansive, bucolic, white picket fence suburb. Forbriger topped off his upscale lifestyle with a brand new car. As Jones explained, that sleek shiny acquisition took the family places they never imagined. “The Forbrigers always had four or five dogs and a little less than two years ago one of them, a Gordon Setter, disappeared. It was a disconsolate occasion for everyone.” A few months later those heartbroken daughters suggested a Sunday drive to see a new litter of Saint pups.

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Posted by Alex on Oct 31 2020. Filed under Current Articles, Featured. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. Both comments and pings are currently closed.