Breeding goal
Our goals, which we strive for, are concentrated on the following typical character traits of the Leonberger.
Like our bitch, the male should be fond of children, protect the family, appear safe, be kept as a "good buddy" in the family and be so calm and balanced that he recognizes when barking is necessary.
A further important goal is the appearance. We try to keep the old type, which we have bred before.
He should have a medium withers and bone strength. If possible the mask should run far above eye level and the pigment should be dark. We pay great attention to the shape of the head, which should resemble our former Leos. If the proportions in the bone structure are correct, then we are very close to our ideal.
Since our club has been prescribing a stricter breeding approval for over 30 years and the introduction of hip joint dysplasia (HD) controls requires, the number of severe and moderate HD has decreased tremendously. Thus our Leos can live longer, because in former times we (the Leo masters) often had to free our darlings from the pain in the hip joint.
Health and longevity are also very important goals for us. This includes mating healthy dogs with HD A. Further editions of the club have become opligatory in recent years, including LPN 1,2 and LEMP, as well as DNA.
We do not only fulfil the obligatory breeding regulations determined by the club, but we also carry out regular examinations for heart, lungs, eyes, faeces (worms), blood (thyroid gland). At the same time the elbows (ED) are x-rayed during the hip x-ray (HD).
We could list further points, but this would go into too much detail.
You can set yourself many more goals, but it will be difficult to implement them all. There will certainly be disappointments and compromises will be necessary. But we will have the tools right in front of us.
In order to guarantee these characteristics, we would like to maintain contact with the "new owner" even after a sale in order to incorporate our previous experience into current breeding considerations.
In spite of intensive observation of the Leonberger and targeted selection of the parents, we need a portion of luck in order to come a big step closer to our goals.