The Life and Times of Le Bronco von der Löwenhöhle: Stories and Tips from Thirteen Years with a Leonberger

By Thomas Wikman

"A wonderful tribute to the author's beloved Bronco. The stories are heartwarming as well as

informative-a true glimpse into life with a Leonberger. The adorable illustrations are icing on

the cake." -D'Nae Wilson, President, Leonberger Health Foundation International

"A lovely tribute to Bronco, with lots of resour

• Language: English
• Publisher: Thebes Press
• Release date: Jul 3, 2022
• ISBN: 9780998084961

Thomas Wikman

Thomas Wikman is a retired automation, robotics, and software engineer and inveterate dog lover who emigrated from Sweden to the United States, where he and his wife raised three children. Their cherished Leonberger, Bronco, crossed the Rainbow Bridge in 2020. The Wikmans live in Dallas, Texas, with their two dogs-a pug and a miniature Australian shepherd.

Book preview

The Life and Times of Le Bronco von der Löwenhöhle

Copyright © 2022 by Thomas Wikman

All rights reserved

This book is the exclusive intellectual property of the author. The text may be quoted for the purposes of marketing, promotion, and reviews. Any other use of the material herein, including for classroom instruction, workshops, readings, and other events, requires the permission of the author and/or his legal representatives. Thank you for respecting authors’ rights.

Photographs on pages 7 and 80 by Aaron Brothers

Photograph on page 106 (left) © Shutterstock/Holly Kuchera

Image on page 132 courtesy of Wikimedia Commons: DEU Leonberg Böblingen COA.svg/Artist: Chris die Seele

Photograph on page 190 © Shutterstock/Eric Isselee

ISBN: 978-0-9980849-5-4

E-book ISBN: 978-0-9980849-6-1

Drawings by Naomi Rosenblatt

Book design by Susan Hood Design

Manufactured in the United States of America

This book is dedicated to the memory of

Le Bronco von der Löwenhöhle

and to the dogs he grew up with—

Baylor, Baby, Ryu, Daisy, and Rollo

Contents

Preface

This book is a biography of the amazing, brave, beautiful, loyal, and loving Leonberger Bronco, who came to live with me and my family—my wife, Claudia; our sons, Jacob and David; and our daughter, Rachel—in 2007. He was our best friend and a big presence in our lives. He lived an unusually long time for a Leonberger, and he left us a long list of stories to tell—funny moments, crazy adventures, and tales of his larger-than-life personality. It is when everyday life is interrupted by the unexpected that you really experience what it means to own a dog, and Leonbergers are full of surprises.

This book also tells the stories of the dogs Bronco grew up with. When he came into our household, we already had a Labrador retriever mix, Baylor, and a German shepherd, Baby. When Bronco was around a year old, we got Ryu, a Japanese Chin, then almost a year later, Daisy, a pug. Much later, when Bronco was eleven years old, we would get Rollo, a miniature Australian shepherd. Bronco’s love for and tolerance of his dog siblings was truly amazing to see. He protected them, played with them, saved their lives, shared his food with them, and wanted to be with them all the time. They were his family, and he felt responsible for their safety and care.

In addition, this book is an introduction to the Leonberger breed—its history, standards, care, training, and health. I will discuss the cost of owning a Leonberger, where to get one, and whether a Leonberger is the right dog for you. This information is provided for nonexperts: it’s basic, but I hope it will prove helpful to Leonberger owners and prospective Leonberger owners.

Leonbergers are gentle giants. They are confident, brave, insensitive to noise, good with children and other dogs, and very social. They are family dogs and loyal companions. They are also big, powerful, full of energy, and can be rambunctious when they’re young. Also, unfortunately, Leonbergers usually do not live very long—on average, eight years. Still, Bronco lived to be almost thirteen.

We got Bronco as a fourteenth birthday present for our son Jacob. But Bronco wasn’t just any birthday present. Getting a Leonberger is an affair that is much bigger than simply buying a gift. We had researched the breed; we knew that Leonbergers require a lot of exercise, training, brushing, attention, and space. We knew that Leonbergers are big and strong and expensive to care for. Raising a Leonberger is a commitment that not everyone is capable of making. In fact our breeder made sure that we were fit to be Leonberger owners before she would sell us one.

We were not perfect Leonberger owners by any means, though. We learned along the way. So don’t get too hung up about the mismatches between the information and advice I provide and our own lack of perfection. Instead, laugh at us—I mean, with us—learn from our mistakes, and strive to be better dog parents than we were. Most of all, I invite you to continue reading and discover how eventful, fun, and fulfilling the experience of Leonberger ownership can be.

Chapter 1

"Let’s Do Le Bronco von der

Löwenhöhle"

It was a quiet evening, and I was home alone. My wife, Claudia, was visiting her parents a few blocks away with Rachel, our daughter. Our son Jacob was meeting with his debate team; our other son, David, was visiting a friend.

I was making myself a ham sandwich in the kitchen when I suddenly felt a hand on my right shoulder. I startled and turned my head to face what I feared was an intruder, and there he stood on his hind legs—our Leonberger, Bronco. His big paw on my shoulder felt for a moment exactly like a human hand.

Bronco looked at me with his kind, wise eyes, then he looked at the sandwich. Then he turned his head toward me again and held my gaze. At that moment I understood what he wanted. I cut the sandwich in two and gave him his half.

I should explain that we had a problem with a trespasser at that time, which was the reason I was startled. This trespasser would sit outside our bedroom window at night and make threats and shout obscene comments at Claudia when I was not present. At first, though, we didn’t know where the threats and comments were coming from. I doubted Claudia’s accounts of these incidents, especially because she thought the voice might be coming from within our bedroom, perhaps via an electronic speaker. I thought she was just having nightmares.

Then one night I heard it myself—a voice screaming, I am going to burn your house down! Just as Claudia had said, it sounded like it came from within our bedroom, almost as if it were right next to me.

After Claudia and I went through our Oh, so now you believe me routine, I started looking under our bed and inside the heating and air-conditioning vents for hidden speakers and/or microphones. It was hard to believe that someone had planted these things in our bedroom, but that seemed to be the case.

Then it finally dawned on me. Next to the headboard of our bed, on Claudia’s side, just inches from her pillow, is a window. At night, when the blinds are lowered and the slats are partially open, you can see in, even if we have just a few lights on in the house. But of course under these conditions, you can’t see anything that might be outside.

I ran out the front door and around the back of the house, and there, right in front of our bedroom window, was one of our lawn chairs. The trespasser had climbed our fence, taken the chair, sat down in front of the window, and spied on us. Whenever I left the room, he would shout obscenities and threats at Claudia. When his face was planted in front of our window, he was just two or three feet away. This was why the voice felt so close. This had been going on for two weeks. We were happy to have finally figured it out, but we realized we had a problem.

We talked to our neighbors about the situation, and they told us that the trespasser had terrorized them as well. He had been quite busy looking through bedroom windows at night. People in the neighborhood were scared. I called the police, who told us they could do nothing unless the man was caught in the act or he committed a crime other than trespassing.

Therefore, I decided to hire private investigators. I found them in the phone book. Phone books still existed back then.

The investigators told me that they typically spy on people suspected of cheating on their spouses, so this would be a more interesting job for them. The plan was for them to hide behind the bushes in our backyard and in a dark car parked on our street. When the man appeared, they would record him on video. They had a lot of fancy equipment and instruments, including big microphones, cameras, and metal detectors. They reminded us of Ghostbusters with all their technology and enthusiasm. They clearly loved their job. Unfortunately, though, the trespasser didn’t show up, so after a couple of days I decided to let the investigators go.

However, I soon figured out who the trespasser was. I started paying attention to what was going on in the neighborhood, and one evening, I noticed a strange-looking but relatively young man, apparently homeless, who seemed to be stealthily roaming our neighborhood. I did not confront him, because I had no proof.

But a few days later, I heard shuffling noises outside our bedroom window. The trespasser was finally back. This time I sent Bronco out to chase him, and he did. Like the detectives, Bronco was enthusiastic but didn’t catch him. Still, he chased the man off. Having a big bearlike dog rushing toward you at night is probably a bit unnerving, even if the dog just wants to lick you. We never experienced or heard about the problem after this event, so Bronco may have helped the entire neighborhood.

A couple of weeks later, while walking Bronco on a neighboring block, I saw the homeless man across the street, at a bit of a distance. He stared at us in fright. Bronco just calmly looked at him without barking. The man was clearly terrified of Bronco, and he ran away. But despite the nightmare the homeless man had inflicted on us, I felt sorry for him. My guess is that he was suffering from mental illness and that he had had a very tough and lonely life.

What’s in a Name?

You may have figured out from the title of this book and the title of this chapter that Bronco’s full name was Le Bronco von der Löwenhöhle. However, his name on the original pedigree certificate from the Leonberger Club of America was even more interesting: Lets do le Bronco von der Löwenhöhle—yes, without the apostrophe. How did that happen?

The Leonberger is a noble and relatively rare breed, and purebred Leonbergers typically have a long pedigree that can be traced back to the beginning of the twentieth century. This means that if you buy one, you and your dog will become part of a special community, and your dog’s name will reflect that. Bronco’s last name, von der Löwenhöhle, means that he originated from Kennel von der Löwenhöhle.

During an email exchange with the person writing up Bronco’s pedigree certificate, we were informed that because our dog was born in a litter identified by the letter L, his official name needed to begin with an L, too, even though at home we could call our dog whatever we liked. We knew we wanted to name him Bronco, which we thought was appropriate for a Leonberger, so later Claudia wrote, Let’s do Le Bronco, intending that the dog’s name would begin with the word Le, fulfilling the kennel’s requirement.

But when we received a copy of Bronco’s pedigree, we saw that our correspondent had misunderstood and included the words Let’s do as part of the name! Well, Let’s do starts with an L, too, so it fulfilled the pedigree requirement. And that’s how Bronco’s official full name came to be Lets do le Bronco von der Löwenhöhle.

We were surprised to see Bronco’s official name as it appeared on his pedigree.

There were other mistakes on the certificate, too: Bronco was classified as female, and our last name was misspelled as Wickman. We later got these mistakes corrected in the Worldwide Independent Leonberger Database, and some mistakes were corrected on the registration certificate from the American Kennel Club, which we got in 2010, after the Leonberger was recognized by the AKC. But none of that mattered much to us: we knew his name; Jacob knew his name; Bronco knew his name. Plus, we got a good story out of it.

A Dramatic Arrival

Kennel von der Löwenhöhle is located in Vancouver, Canada, and we live in Dallas. So even though the owners do not normally do this, they agreed to have Bronco shipped to us by air. He was between nine and ten weeks old at the time.

On the