I just want a pet. Why do I need to worry about my Leonbergers pedigree ?
Even if you are looking for just a pet, the pedigree of your Leonberger is very important. To help illustrate this, let us suppose that you buy your puppy from a breeder who knows nothing about the pedigree behind your dog. Your dog gets very sick, but neither you nor your breeder knows anything about the health or longevity of the dogs in your puppys pedigree. As a result you have no way of knowing why your puppy may be ill, or if it has a heritable disease. When you buy a Leonberger from a conscientious breeder, they know about the dogs in your puppys pedigree and, in turn, can provide you with very important information about your particular dog. For example, they can tell you how long the dogs in the pedigree lived, what health ailments they may have had (note: responsible breeders avoid using dogs with known health issues in their breeding programs), and whether or not the dogs were health tested for common breed problems. These breeders are often able to tell you about dogs in th
