Benji was Frank and my first born and for that he received endless amounts of love, attention and companionship. This was a two way relationship and my walks with Benji were more therapeutic than you can imagine.

The weather was never too wet or cold to take Benji out for a walk and he was an integral part of our lives. Panda was his best friend and they were inseparable. Most evenings Panda would lie next to Benji and lick his ears clean, or sleep with her head on his back.

Since Benji died Panda has not really been herself. She loves her 2 puppies dearly but I can see she missed him a lot.

I have a few memories of Benji which are priceless.

The first is of when he was a puppy of a few months old and we saw him running in the garden with a big red thing in his mouth….we knew he had no red toy and so we went to investigate, only to find that Benji had put his paws up on the kitchen counter and nabbed our new gouda wheel of cheese as a snack!

The next is of Ben’s love for the creepy crawly. It was "pre-kids", so pre pool fences and Benji just could not help but attack the creepy crawly in the middle of the night, every night! He would plunge into the pool, grab it and haul it out into the garden. He cost us a small fortune replacing those creepy crawlies.

Another one is when I took Benji for a walk on the Rathfelder green belt and he chased a squirrel but to his amazement actually caught the thing! He could not believe his luck and I had a hard time prying him off the squirrel that was unfortunately worse for wear.

Benji also jumped out of a moving car’s window once in hot pursuit of a flock of guinea fowls! He certainly loved a chase but the object had to be alive. He was certainly not bothered about chasing a ball or Frisbee……

Benji was a nightmare eater and for all "parents" feeding your offspring is your duty. Benji simply refused to eat biscuits for supper- Science diet, Eukanuba, vets choice, you name it…..he wanted the real stuff like chicken and liver and pate and even curry. So began the start of a very slippery road. Panda learnt quickly enough to refuse the biscuits, followed by the puppies. We now have 3 large adult dogs eating copious quantities of chicken and liver and pate toast, all thanks to Benji. But sometimes even the chicken was not what he wanted (I think he may have had an underlying pathology all along) and I would pretend to be another dog on my hands and knees and eat his food with him. It was quite a sight! Benji loved company when he ate. I had to stand there while he ate dinner….it made him eat better and it also stopped Panda from stealing all of his food. Panda certainly does not have an anorexia problem!

Then it was the question of the shows. Benji was not into this beauty contest thing. We wanted him to be shown to educate other dog lovers about the breed but Benji just found it a bore. He did 3 shows and in the first two did really well and got a CACIB. But in the third show he decided he had done enough "away and backs" and bolted out of the arena to me and Panda. He got disqualified and we never went back. It was not for him.

I could go on and on but basically Benji was our first Leo and he passed on his exceptional genes to his 9 puppies. The breed is getting established here mainly because of Benji and his puppies. He started this love affair that we have with the breed and we plan to own Leo’s forever. Thankfully other people are learning about the Leonberger and realizing that life is not complete without one of these beautiful creatures.

We miss him terribly. But Jack is helping to fill the void.


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