This is post number 20 for my Leonberger/Bronco blog. I decided to make it a list of posts. Not all posts were equally popular and maybe you missed the posts you would have liked the most. You can click on the link or the picture to see a post, then click back or “Home” (at the top) go back. If you read a post I certainly would love to get a “like” or maybe a comment.
Leonberger’s live on average 8-9 years. However, the Leonberger Health Foundation International is working hard to extend the lifespan of Leonbergers. They give an award to all Leonbergers who have survived passed their 12th birthday. The award is called the Grey Muzzle Award.
Bronco, who was not at his best in this picture, rests next to our tornado damaged fence. We put a plastic bag around his bandage when he went outside.
The coat of arms of the town of Leonberg, Germany, was allegedly the inspiration for the first breeder of the Leonberger, Heinrich Essig
The Leonberger takes it name after the town of Leonberg in Germany
The Leonberger breed was originally created by Heinrich Essig (1808–87) in the German town of Leonberg, in what was then the kingdom of Württemberg
The coat of arms of the town of Leonberg, Germany, was allegedly the inspiration for the first breeder of the Leonberger, Heinrich Essig (maybe you can say that the Leonberger looks the way it does because Germans were bad at drawing lions back then)
The breed was first registered in 1846
According to Essig, the Leonberger is a cross between a Saint Bernard, a Newfoundland, and what is thought to be Great Pyrenees or a Pyrenean Mastiff (not known which). In reality the mixing and matching went back and forth between these three breeds throughout history and it may be more complicated.
In the 1870s, Leonbergers were brought to Newfoundland to invigorate the stock of Newfoundland dogs
In 1879 President Ulysses S. Grant gave two Leonbergers gold medals
The first Leonberger breed standard was created in 1895
Leonbergers were used in the World War I to pull ammunition carts and cannons, which was one of the reasons the breed was decimated during World War I
Leonbergers have webbed paws
Leonbergers are double coated
Until 1985, there were only seventeen Leonbergers known to be living in the United States
The Leonberger Club of America was founded in 1985
The Leonberger was recognized by the American Kennel Club in 2010 as its 167th breed.*
The Leonberger is unique in the AKC for being the only dog in the Working Group originally bred to be a companion.†
According to an estimate prepared by BioMed Central, there were around 30,000 Leonbergers in the world in 2020 (registered only).‡
There are around 3,300 Leonbergers in North America—2,300 in the United States and 1,000 in Canada.§
The five countries with the most Leonbergers, in order, are France, with nearly 8,000; Germany, with more than 4,000; and Great Britain, the United States, and Sweden, with approximately 2,300 each.¶
The country with the highest number of Leonbergers per capita is Finland, with nearly 2,000 Leonbergers among a population of 5.5 million people.
§ Sharon Springel, “Understanding Mean Kinship,” LeoLetter, October 2018, 60. ¶ “Springel, “Understanding Mean Kinship.” ** “Springel, “Understanding Mean Kinship.”
Leonbergers on-screen
Did you know that three Leonberger dogs played the main character, Buck, in The Call of the Wild: Dog of the Yukon (1997)?
* See Stuart Fitzgerald, “Leonberger,” DogZone.com, at
And that a Leonberger named Hagrid appeared on Britain’s Got More Talent in 2017? Hagrid was attempting to set a new Guinness world record for catching the maximum number of sausages in his mouth in the shortest period of time.
You can watch Hagrid’s attempt below
The Leonberger Hagrid and his world record in sausage catching
Leonberger Life 