Italy

the Italian heroe Giuseppe Garibaldi had a Leonberger as well as the King Umberto I, in the IXX century.

The recent histroy of the breed starts at the end of the II World War when a Leonberger dog named Pinko was left in Italy by his german master, an Official of the III Reich, while the army was fleeting from the country.
At the end of fifties, the first Leonberger was imported from Germany by Mr. Dante Visioli, then Mr. and Mrs. Bonazzola imported a couple and started to show and also bred few puppies that were the head of the activity of two kennels. In almost ten years, though, this first beginning of a national breeding stopped and no one of these blood lines was preserved in the next time.

We have to wait the birth of the Club Italiano del Leonberger in 1987 to see the real start of a serious activity in Leonbergers.

The founder of the Club, Dr. Guido Perosino, and his former dogs represent the true beginning of a solid interest around the breed in Italy.
The most famous bitch that has the responsability of the ideal mothership of the breed was imported from Mr. Gerhard Zerle’s kennel in Germany, her name was Ophelia Von Loh.
She was a charming, beautiful bitch that had one of the most successful and important showing career both in Italy and in many European countries. After Ophelia many breed champions gave birth to the first strong group of stud dogs in the country.
Today the Club is formed by 200 members about. The Board is supported by a Breeding Committee that works on the improvemnet of the breed with a strictly technical approach.
Every year a Club Show is organized with the partecipation of dogs from many european countries. Starting in the year 2000 the Club assigns a prestigeous international “Millenium Leonberger Award” to the most important persons of the Leo World.
The Club publishes a periodical magazine, called “Leoclub”.