Leonberger Health : Genetic Diversity

With the Leonberger being a rare breed, it is important that we maintain, if not improve upon, the genetic diversity of the breed. Research indicates that the greater the number of unique ancestors in a pedigree, the longer a dog tends to live. Leonbergers, however, all find their roots in a handful of initial breeding candidates, so not much past 10-11 generations, one starts to find the same dogs in almost all pedigrees.

For breeding purposes, this means investigating inbreeding coefficients as well as looking at the number of unique individual dogs in a proposed pedigree. In our breeding program, we calculate the inbreeding coefficients over ten generations for each breeding, and try keep it around 10-11% or less.

We do not believe in blindly outcrossing to unrelated dogs, because doing so can lead to inadvertantly increasing the number of carrier dogs for various genetic illnesses which may not have been present in our gene pool to begin with. Without knowing enough information about a dog's siblings, parents, and relatives, it is impossible to know what that dog will be passing on to its offspring.

For further detailed links on this subject, please visit:
• The Canine Diversity Project
• Australian Shepherd Health & Genetics Institute
• Explanation of Ancestor Loss in a pedigree