The purpose of the Health, Research, and Education Committee is to identify health concerns, determine their impact on the breed, research those problems, make recommendations to the Breeding Committee and to the Board, and to educate the Membership.

In order to determine which health problems to look at in more detail, the HREC tries to estimate:
• the potential threat a disorder may present to the breed
• the severity of the disease
• the number of affected dogs
• known carriers
• the diagnosis by breeding age

Unfortunately, until genetic markers for diseases have been discovered, which will make routine DNA testing possible, there will be no definitive way to determine what combinations of dogs/genes will produce a health problem. For this reason, the HREC strongly recommends that breeders research the health backgrounds of both dogs before a planned breeding to make certain that the same problems are not present in the bloodlines of stud and bitch being bred. That said, even with the most intense investigation into the health backgrounds of two dogs, it is still possible to have health problems crop up.

As the population of the Leonberger increases, and we have a higher number of older dogs, we would expect to see greater numbers of dogs with diseases we have already identified and the possible appearance of new health issues. We would like to reiterate that it is not possible to breed away from diseases until we know they exist. For this reason, we depend on you, the LCA Membership, to let us know about health conditions as well as any significant new health problems affecting your dog.