St. Guinefort

Recently, someone gave me a book of photographs called, appropriately enough, Greyhounds by photographer Barbara Karant. It is absolutely gorgeous and the proceeds from the book benefit greyhound rescue. Anyway, I was skimming through some of the text and saw it mentioned that the only non-human saint is St. Guinefort - a greyhound! How cool is that???

I looked up the story of St. Guinefort and learned that, supposedly, he was a 13th century dog near Lyon in France who belonged to a knight. The knight went hunting and left his infant son in the care his faithful greyhound. When he returned home, there was blood all over and the baby's cradle was overturned. The dog lay on the floor next to the cradle with blood on his mouth. Thinking the dog had killed the baby, the knight then killed the dog. Then he heard the baby cry. The baby was safe and sound under the cradle, but next to him was a dead snake - killed by the dog to protect the baby. Realizing his mistake, the knight buried the dog in a nearby well and planted trees to honor him. Locals started bringing their babies to the shrine to beg for protection from St. Guinefort, who had now become known as a protector of infants.

Greyhounds are truly special dogs!