Health Survey

Institute of Genetics


The Pedigree Breed Health Survey is an essential tool for understanding the health and well-being of Leonbergers. By participating, you contribute valuable data that helps us monitor breed health trends and improve the overall quality of our beloved companions.

Institute of Genetics website page for the Leonberger Health Questionnaire, with German and UK flag language options
Institute of Genetics

Health survey

  • Forms were received representing 153 living dogs & 44 deceased dogs.
  • A total of 44 deaths were reported, representing 0.78% of all deaths reported in the Pedigree Breed
  • Health survey. The median longevity for the Leonberger was 9 years (Figure 1). Table 1 shows the causes of death for the breed. Age at death is presented for the most common causes in Figure 2.
  • Table 1 The twenty most common causes of death/reasons for euthanasia (N = 44 deceased dogs).

Age at death

  • Figure 1: Histogram of the longevity for 44 reported deaths: overall median age at death was 9 years
  • (minimum= 3 years, maximum= 13 years); mean age at death was 8.59 years

Cause of death

  • Figure 2: Box and whisker plot of age at death in years for the twenty most common causes of deathbox represents 50% of the dogs and the whiskers represent 95% of the dogs for each condition. 
  • The(N=44). The solid line within each box represents the median age of death from the condition. The circles () represent possible outliers







Morbidity results

  • The 153 live Leonbergers represented 0.35% of total dogs in the survey. The median age of live dogs for the breed was 4 years (Table 2)
  • Of the 153 Leonbergers which the survey covers, 97 had reported no conditions and 56 reported affected by at least one condition(min = 1 condition(s), max= 8 conditions), giving a total of 126 incidents of conditions.
  • The gender, neuter status and age of neutering summary statistics for Leonbergers are shown in Table 3. 
  • There were 113 dogs with responses for Body Condition displayed in Table 4.
  • The median age the dogs were first affected by a condition was 4 years (min = 0 years, max= 12 years, Figure 3) 
  • The ages for the most common conditions is displayed in Figure 4. 
  • Table 5 shows the frequency of occurrence of all reported disease conditions for the Leonberger.
  • Table 2: The summary statistics for the dogs’ current age when survey was completed

Age first affected (years)

  • Figure 3: Histogram showing frequency of known age at diagnosis for the disease conditions reporter

Condition

Figure 4: Box and whisker plot of age at diagnosis in years for the most common disease conditions in descending order. The solid line within each box represents the median age at diagnosis from the condition. The box represents 50% of the dogs and the whiskers represent 95% of the dogs for each condition. The circles () represent possible outliers      





                             

Summary

  • Table 5: The most commonly reported disease conditions in descending order for the breed  (N = 153 live dogs
  • From the dogs surveyed, most Leonbergers were not affected by a disease condition (63.40%). Themost commonly reported disease condition in live dogs was skin (cutaneous) cyst. The mostcommonly reported cause of death was bone tumour.