About Us : History

We first found out about Leonbergers and promptly joined the LCA way back in 1995. I have been crazy about dogs my entire life, and it was really hard for me to go without having one during college because student housing didn't allow fish, let alone a dog. After we got married, I started researching various breeds to try and decide on which one we wanted to add to our lives. We had it narrowed to Great Danes, Newfies, and Bernese Mountain Dogs. I wanted the fluff that came with a heavy-coated breed, we didn't want to deal with drooling, and we wanted a breed with stringent breeding regulations, and that left us with nothing, or so we thought, till we came across the Leonberger.

I then became fanatical about finding out as much about Leos as I possibly could. I joined the Leolist which, back then in '95, had all of about 20 people subscribed to it and everyone mailed me color copies of photos of their Leonbergers since photos online were far and few between.

We were living in Utah at the time, and Waltraut Zieher told us of a couple of her Leos who lived in Park City, UT. I vividly remember the image of those two incredibly majestic dogs bounding towards us in the crisp white snow. We were sold on the breed! Since we were still in student housing at the time, it was not until 1998 that we were able to get our first real live Leonberger.

In the interim, I spent as much of my waking hours with dogs as I possibly could. I started apprenticing with a local dog training facility in 1996 and soon began assisting and teaching Puppy Kindergarten and Basic Obedience classes with them. I also got involved volunteering for the Humane Society of Utah, helping the shelter dogs with training, grooming, and dog walking.

We attended our first Leonberger National Specialty in 1997 in Monterey, California. It was just breathtaking seeing so many Leos in one place. Everyone answered our multitude of questions and we became surer than ever that this was the breed for us.

The following year, I was on the Specialty Committee for the 1998 Leonberger National held in Denver, Colorado. I had the pleasure of conducting the Canine Good Citizen test there, with the assistance of several wonderful helpers and we had over 30 Leonbergers qualify for the CGC title!

In early '98, we had a Leonberger puppy come through one of the Puppy Kindergarten classes I was assisting with, and I became his official "dogsitter" as his mom had to work a lot during the day. That gave us an up close and personal experience with Leos and prepared us to be Leonberger parents.

After spending the summer of '98 in Capetown, South Africa, where I ended up emailing my breeder daily and driving her batty to get news of the litter, we finally picked up our not-so-little "wittle weo" from Washington state, and the rest is history!