Leonbergers Are Kind Dogs

Esther’s writing prompt: 13th August : Kind

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Leonbergers Are Kind

What kind of dog is a Leonberger? Well, a Leonberger is a kind dog. If you don’t know what a Leonberger is; it is a big fluffy, fun and friendly family dog originating in Germany. It was registered as a new breed in 1846 in the town of Leonberg by a prominent businessman named Heinrich Essig. Allegedly Essig used Saint Bernards but also Newfoundland Dogs, and allegedly Great Pyrenees (or Pyrenean mastiffs) to create a breed that was big, muscular, and looked like a lion. However, what he strived for the most was to create a friendly, confident and predictable family dog. These characteristics make the Leonberger a perfect therapy dog, and his majestic and fluffy appearance does not hurt. Leonbergers also have a great sense of smell, they are great at pulling heavy carts, and they have webbed feet (from the Newfoundland dogs) and they are great swimmers. You can read about the history of the Leonberger here.

On the left is bear cub looking Leonberger puppy wearing a red scarf/ On the right is a tired old Leonberger lying in the grass. He is looking straight into the camera
On the left our Leonberger Bronco is three months old. On the right is our Leonberger Bronco when he was old almost 13 years old.
Our Leonberger Bronco is bigger than my wife and she is barely visible behind him.
Our Leonberger Bronco is sitting in my wife Claudia’s lap. He was slightly overweight in this picture, 167 pounds, or 76 kilograms. His ideal weight is 140 pounds.

Bronco Our Leonberger Shares a Baked Potato

I believe dogs have empathy, and sometimes they want to share—at least Bronco did. There was a time when we were in our home eating take-out food and Bronco stole one of our dinners, including meat, vegetables, and a baked potato. He started eating the meat, then he glanced at our Pug Daisy, who was sitting in the middle of the floor looking sad. Immediately he took the baked potato in his mouth and carried it over to her and dropped it right at her feet. I was going to get mad at him for stealing, but when I saw his kindhearted and unselfish act, I let it be.

Our Leonberger Bronco is standing in the kitchen. There’s a broken gingerbread house on the floor. Our Pug Daisy is setting next to Bronco and the broken gingerbread house.
On another occasion Bronco stole our gingerbread house. As you can see in the picture, he shared that with Daisy as well.

Bronco Alerts Us to an Insulin Shock

We had a Labrador called Baylor who had diabetes. One late evening Bronco started barking while looking at Baylor, then he intently looked at us, then he turned his head toward Baylor and started barking again. He did this a few times—not aggressively, but to get our attention. It became clear that Bronco wanted us to look at Baylor. I examined Baylor but saw nothing wrong at first. Then I looked again. This time I saw that his back legs were shaking slightly. It quickly got worse. His gait became wobbly, then within perhaps fifteen seconds he fainted. He had gone into insulin shock. We rushed him to the emergency clinic, where fortunately the doctors were able to revive him.

Bronco detected a problem with Baylor before we could see anything wrong. His warnings gave us that little bit of extra time we needed to save Baylor’s life. I still wonder what it was that Bronco noticed. You can read more about this incident here.

Bronco’s Hamster Rescue Operation

We used to have hamsters. On several occasions the hamsters escaped their cage but luckily our Leonberger Bronco found the hamsters for us. As I mentioned Leonbergers have good sense of smell. One day my wife found Bronco walking around with puffy cheeks. There were hamsters in his mouth. Long story short, he was not trying to eat them, he was saving them, and the hamsters were fine. You can read more about this incident here.

Our Leonberger Bronco with puffy cheeks
Hamsters in Bronco’s cheeks. Illustration by Naomi Rosenblatt.

Bronco Saves Daisy’s Life

On another occasion, Bronco did something else amazing for our Pug Daisy. Despite having issues with his paws—this was around the time he was being treated for squamous cell carcinoma—he saved Daisy from an attacking German shepherd who was running loose.

We were at Claudia’s parents’ house, just leaving, when one of their neighbors came out to drop some garbage in the trash can at the end of her driveway. With her was a young, probably adolescent, German shepherd, and he was not on a leash. As we were standing on the porch, I suddenly saw the shepherd flying through the bushes, his teeth bared. He quickly charged us—viciously.

The owner of the shepherd came over to apologize, but I cursed at her. Maybe I shouldn’t have, but she had a vicious and dangerous dog, and she intentionally let him run loose. In the end, though, there were no major injuries. Bronco’s leg was slightly hurt, but overall, he was fine. These days, whenever we talk about this incident, I jokingly refer to the neighbor dog as Cujo.

Rachel is sitting down on her knees while petting our black and white mini-Australian Shepherd Rollo and our Pug Daisy.
Just as our daughter Rachel protects Rollo and Daisy, Bronco protected the smaller dogs, sometimes at his own peril.

A Therapy Leonberger Called Scout

As I mentioned, Leonbergers are great therapy dogs and are often used in hospitals. Below is a video about a Leonberger called Scout by CBC news in Canada. This Leonberger is helping residents at Hamilton mental health hospital. He was bred by Concorde Ridge Leonbergers. They have a website and a blog which I follow. You visit my post about Scout here. The 8-minute video is shown on the website below.

https://www.cbc.ca/player/play/video/1.6835161

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Author: thomasstigwikman

My name is Thomas Wikman. I am a software/robotics engineer with a background in physics. I am currently retired. I took early retirement. I am a dog lover, and especially a Leonberger lover, a home brewer, craft beer enthusiast, I’m learning French, and I am an avid reader. I live in Dallas, Texas, but I am originally from Sweden. I am married to Claudia, and we have three children. I have two blogs. The first feature the crazy adventures of our Leonberger Le Bronco von der Löwenhöhle as well as information on Leonbergers. The second blog, superfactful, feature information and facts I think are very interesting. With this blog I would like to create a list of facts that are accepted as true among the experts of the field and yet disputed amongst the public or highly surprising. These facts are special and in lieu of a better word I call them super-facts.

62 thoughts on “Leonbergers Are Kind Dogs”

  1. I love your stories about Bronco , he was such an amazing dog . It’s funny that he’s similar to my doberman , Roxas . When we got our second husky puppy after our older siberian husky passed abruptly . He was so excited to have a little baby , he was pretty depressed after the bigger Husky passed , as she pretty much raised him when he was a puppy . While he wasn’t very strict at with the puppy , he would look after her , giving her toys , laying down so she could play with him ( she’s still pretty small even though she’s 9 now) . One time I threw away a white frosted cake and got in the trash and picked up the cake and dropped it for her . I had to grab it super quick so my puppy didn’t eat it lol But it was so funny that he likes to share with her .

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    1. Thank you so much for your kind words oliveunicorn. That is a very sweet story about Roxas and funny about the frosting. Roxas was like a mother to new puppy. Dogs are sometimes amazing. I am sorry about the loss of your first Husky.

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      1. Yes , my fiance’s had the first husky before he met me , and she was one of a kind . Really intelligent , learned so many tricks and words . Plus she was a great bigger sis to Roxas . Even if she did put him in his place a few times lol .

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  5. Lovely post Thomas. Bronco was a credit to you and his breed.
    Maya is a GSD as you know and has a similar gift in detecting health issues. Although she is not an official support or assistant dog, she is wonderful with Hubby and has given him the confidence to go out on his own with her. If he has one of his ‘moments’, she waits quietly and if it is longer than a few minutes, will gently nudge him and ‘bring him back’. He doesn’t pass out, just switches off sometimes.
    Everyone recognises her and Hubby says it’s quite funny when a visitor to the town will comment on her being unapproachable and possibly will bite, then a regular following behind will greet her by name and have a fuss.
    I love all dogs, and it is down to the owners to socialise them not just with other dogs, but people too. It’s wonderful for us when someone who has had a bad experience with a shepherd or big dog tentatively asks us if they can touch/stroke Maya. We make her sit and let them take their time. We are so proud of the way she is with them.

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    1. Thank you so much pensitivity101. You are right, “it is down to the owners to socialise them not just with other dogs, but people too.” Some manage doing it and some don’t. We used to have a German Shepherd called Baby. My wife’s sister got her from a shelter and when she moved we took her. It seemed like she thought Bronco was her puppy. She played with him all day and protected him fiercely from unfriendly dogs. Her mother instincts really kicked in.

      It is great that Maya is able to help your husband and nudge him back to reality when he switches off. Dogs are sometimes very smart.

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  6. Lovely stories and a precious dog!! So nice to read Bronco’s adventures. The way you put it gives me the impression that I knew him personally. Wonderful, as always, Thomas! Thanks for sharing. Light and blessings to you, today and always 🙏✨

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    1. Our daughter-in-law’s mother and her mother, who is in a nursing home, met a Leonberger for the first time at the nursing home just a couple of weeks ago. Hopefully you won’t have to wait that long.

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  15. Bronco was definitely very intelligent and very sweet. Him sharing food really shows that because a lot of animals including pets don’t have the ability to understand so deeply and react that compassionately. Also, I definitely get why you were mad about the neighbours dog being loose. That’s so dangerous and you’re lucky Bronco was there.

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    1. Thank you so much Pooja. Yes I thought the baked potato incident was quite interesting. A German Shepherd can easily kill a pug and might have tried bitten me if I had gotten in between so Bronco stepping in made a big difference.

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  16. Dogs, like people, are all different. Still, many are kind and intuitive, wanting to please their owners and protect them when necessary. You have some great memories and stories about Bronco, Thomas.

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  18. Bronco was so very special, and such an intelligent dog.. A true guardian and protector. Thank you for sharing those stories .. Dogs I feel are here to teach us so much. We can learn so much from them. Loyalty, Unconditional Love, and Caring, and Kind.

    I loved the photo’s you chose to share, and you have a beautiful daughter xx
    Enjoy the rest of your weekend xx

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  19. Such heart-warming stories! 💖 Bronco was a beautiful, brave and kind dog. It’s especially wonderful that he was able to detect Baylor’s diabetic episode, and protect Daisy from the raging German Shepherd. I also enjoyed the story of Scout, which is local. Hamilton is only a 20-minute drive down the highway from here. It would be lovely to meet a Leonberger one day. Never had that pleasure!

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    1. Thank you so much Debbie. I will never forget those events. They left an impression on me, and I loved the Scout movie, which I got from Concorde Ridge breeders located in Niagara Peninsula. It is interesting that you live so close to Hamilton.

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        1. That is quite interesting. I should say that Bronco’s breeder, Julie Schaffert, is from Canada as well but all the way on the other side, near Vancouver. She is a big name in the Leonberger community and a pioneer and she has been active since 1990. The Leonberger Club of America was founded in Denver, Colorado in 1985. It was a handfull of Leonbergers and owners in the US and Canada back then.

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    1. It is a rare breed. There are around 1,000 Leonbergers in Canada and around 1,000 in the United States, so 2,000 in the Leonberger Club of America. There are around 30,000 Leonbergers in the world. The country with the most Leonbergers is unsurprisingly Germany with 7,000. More surprisingly is that there are 5,000 in Finland.

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