Behr

When we sought out the breed called Leonberger also called Leos or Leo for short, there were only 800 of them in all of Canada and the United States and many of those belonged to breeders and were not available to potential puppy buyers.

Behr was our first Leonberger. We brought him home in July 1997. He was the 13th born in a litter of 13. In the pile of puppies he's the one with a tri-colored yarn collar in the lower right hand corner, the middle one of the three puppy bottoms pointing to the corner.

He was an oversized big boy, huge in many ways especially in our hearts.

That's me with Behr when we went to pick him up at the breeder's home in July 1997. I was forty-four years old.

The one where Behr was on my shoulder is an interesting story. He loved to stick his nose in the air conditioning vent while laying on my right leg in the front seat of our Mercedes wagon. That worked fine when he was a wee one. In this photograph he attempts to do the same thing without success yet cannot figure out why he doesn't fit.

Finally, the photograph with Behr running in the snow was taken when he was fully grown. Maggie, our rescue Golden Retriever was running with him. She was fully grown as well. Behr clearly dwarfs her with his sheer size. Like I said, he was a big boy, nearly twice her size.

Bailey

It was difficult to decide which photographs to include in this section about our second Leonberger Bailey. He was a completely different Leo than our first one. After Behr died of a myxosarcoma caused my his microchip, we waited a little over three years before getting another Leo. I wasn't ready for a baby puppy in my life while my husband was more than ready, past ready. I had two health scares after Behr died, both of which nearly cost me my eyesight and then my life.

One thing we learned from having a previous Leo was to take more pictures as they grow extremely fast and big during the first six months. They gain two-thirds of their adult size by six months old. No one told us this bit of information the first time. So unlike our time with Behr, we took numerous photos of our next Leo.

This is Bailey's album. He was truly the quintessential Leonberger: A gentle giant. A super socialized puppy, never meeting anyone he didn't grow to love and want their eyes on him so he could look into their eyes. If they attempted to look away, like you do with dogs never staring at their eyes, Bailey would catch your eyes with his gaze and draw you into him. It was as if he had to see into your soul.

Bailey was a great help for my PTSD. He'd press his large body into the back of my legs and instantly calm me. Bailey was amazing in that way.

My husband utilized this calming effect during his infusions for rheumatoid arthritis. The infusions spiked his blood pressure. Bailey laid at my husband's feet with at least a paw touching my husband at all times. That touch calmed my husband and kept his blood pressure normal.

Big Mac

Big Mac is our current Leonberger and the last one we'll own. That's five Leonberbergers which have graced our lives. Rather he's the last one who will steal our hearts and own us completely. He's well on his way there already.

This special boy came to us through two breeders. We had been on the waiting list for a Leonberger almost a year with our breeder. She found one for us through another breeder. It was obvious that one way or another we were meant to get this little guy.

Big Mac is a smart boy and that is evidence by his handiwork which he designs daily with his toys. Instead of a few toys, we decided long ago that we'd make certain our next Leo would be showered with toys of every kind. We've searched and purchased as many different types of toys as possible. I'm certain we could find more and we'll always continue our search for the unique and unusual toys.

What Big Mac does with his toys is nothing short of intelligent.

The other day I made meatballs for my spaghetti. I gave Big Mac his plate of spaghetti, sans the sauce, and his two meatballs. Well, he fell in love with my Italian meatballs. They're a mixture of pork, beef, and turkey.

A couple of weeks later I made more meatballs to go with cheesy, potato soup. This time I left out the Italian spices. I hadn't intended on feeding Big Mac any meatballs. We feed Big Mac a raw meaty diet. So as per planned I cut up his semi frozen steak and lined the pieces up on his plate parallel to each other so he could easily grab a slice. He's teething right now so semi frozen steak feels good on his gums and teeth. My husband and I placed him in his kennel and gave him his dinner.

We sat down to eat our soup and meatballs. A short time into our dinner we both noticed that Big Mac had rearranged the food on his plate. He created a sunburst with the meat and placed his squeaker tennis ball in the center. He hadn't eaten a single piece of meat.

I got the message loud and clear: I want a meatball.

I took his plate to the kitchen and got two meatballs for him, slicing them into bite size pieces. Big Mac loves to thoroughly chew his food, especially if it's a taste he hasn't had before or one he loves, so we frequently cut up special foods in smaller bites for him.

His configuration of the meat and ball was just one of many designs we've seen Big Mac make with objects. He's utilized whatever was available to him. One time we found his giant tennis ball (no squeaker), his medium sized tennis ball (squeaker), and his caterpillar (no squeaker) all lined up along their outside points in a straight line. Then he had three other toys lined up at a 45 degree angle to that line. The other toys were of similar type, two Kongs of varying sizes without squeakers flanked a ball toy with a squeaker. So that means Big Mac purposely designed the configuration with no squeaker toys flanking a squeaker toy and he also did it according to size.

Now I'm taking pictures of these configurations because I'm starting to see that there is perfect order to these designs.