Leonberger University of Bern, Bern, Switzerland In the 1830s, Heinrich Essig, a dog breeder and seller and mayor of the town of Leonberg near Stuttgart in Baden-Württemberg, Germany, claimed to have created the Leonberger by crossing a female Landseer Newfoundland with a "barry" male from the Great St. Bernard Hospice and Monastery (which would later create the Saint Bernard breed). Later, according to Essig, a Pyrenean Mountain Dog was added, resulting in very large dogs with the long, white coats that were the fashion for the time, and pleasant temperament. The first dogs registered as Leonbergers were born in 1846 and
Dog breed Dog breed Dog breeds are dogs that have relatively uniform physical characteristics developed under controlled conditions by humans, with breeding animals selected for phenotypic traits such as size, coat color, structure, and behavior. The Fédération Cynologique Internationale recognizes 337 pure dog breeds. Other uses of the term breed when referring to dogs may include pure breeds, cross-breeds, mixed breeds and natural breeds. The domestic dog is the first species, and the only large carnivore, to have been domesticated. Over the past 200 years, dogs have undergone rapid phenotypic change and were formed into today's modern breeds due to artificial selection