Big may well be beautiful .... but don't think it's very healthy lol Just look at the life expectancy of the giant breeds, and the problems attributed to oversize in general.

How about 'wikipedia' (sp) - that may help? I've just checked my book but its only the newer standard available.

poss checking the history of the leo will give older ones,

ps never heard of the king gsd,, anyone got a linky for it

Voila

http://www.americankingshepherdclubinc.com/

http://www.kingshepherd.com/

PS: They were croosed with malamutes and pyrenese mountaind dog not St. Bernard (I don't know but I really have it in my memory that they were involved too)

I have never heard of the King gsd either ... I have heard of the Shiloh shepherd, an oversized long coated type marketed in the USA - but is NOT a gsd apparently due to crossbreeding.

thanks for the link,

I don't get it really. Are they trying to create a new breed, or are they just breeding larger leos? Seems pretty pointless to me!

If they are trying to breed bigger leos then they are asking for a lot of problems - i think they are trying to take it back to older days when leos were bigger, however they were also more of a working dog also.

I don't think they are trying to create a new breed as a leo was predominantly newfoundland, st bernard and pyrenean mountain dog - to get the recognised breed of the Leonberger.

It still surprises me that people still often ask if they are gsd due to their faces????

having met k9xxb's leo girl, we had a chat about weight,, I had been surprised that vinnie who is much smaller that linda's leo bitch was about 5kg more in weight,
so I guess my question would be, to breed bigger leo's would they need to have far more bone density to take the size,, or would they try to keep the weight down

LOL Shona - you know i don't feed my girlie, lol. Nah on a serious subject of the weight issues - due to the size, i have tended to keep my leos weight down - this is turn allows her to run, swim and just have fun. There are owners that will feed their dog up thinking that a giant breed dog needs to be a giant size belly, lol.

Also in the male leos (leo, berger, help!!) i believe almost straight away there is approx a 10kg weight difference - which must be through bone density as well as general weight. For those who don't know leos, the males are a lot broader, taller and have the most gorgeous squarer (such a word, lol) face. They really are awesome, so to make them bigger can surely only create problems in the breed. Just my opinion though