About Us : Breeding Philosophy

The four cornerstones to our breeding program are health, temperament, structure, and type.

We strive to produce the healthiest Leonberger we can, given the background knowledge we have available at the time. We test for problems with hips, elbows, and heart, as well as eyes and thyroid. We participate openly in the Leonberger Open Health Registry and ask our puppy owners to do the same. We try to research each breeding as much as possible going back several generations and checking on the littermates of each parent, and we also calculate the inbreeding coefficients of all our breedings over ten generations.

A sound temperament is one of the defining characteristics of a Leonberger, as per our breed standard. For show and pet home dogs alike, a friendly temperament is a necessity in dogs that are a part of your family. Leos need to be able to get along well with people, children, and other dogs. Much of temperament is inherited, and the rest molded by a dog's early surroundings and care.

What part of a dog's temperament that is not genetically inherited is highly affected by a puppy's early exposure to various things, which is why constant socialization to other people, objects, children, and dogs, is crucial during the first four months of a puppy's life, and thereafter. We make a conscious effort to expose all our puppies to a myriad of objects, people, and children in the formative, early weeks to get them started on the right paw.

We place a high degree of importance on sound canine structure, not merely to do well in the show ring, but to ensure that we produce puppies who mature into adults that can lead long active lives without physically breaking down. Dogs that are structurally well put together have more endurance and can participate in various canine activities for a longer period of time actively without suffering from the ill effects that a poor front, weak pasterns, poor topline, or straight rear can have on their bodies.

Lastly, but by far not least, Leonberger type is very important to us. Type is what makes a Leonberger look like a Leonberger from a distance. Color, mask, bone, height, size and substance, mane, and coat are some of the things that make a Leonberger stand out from other breeds of dog. We try to always keep the goal of true Leonberger type in mind when making our breeding decisions to ensure that with every successive generation, we take one step closer towards producing the ideal Leonberger.