AKC Gazette April 2007

Building Blocks

The one common denominator that defines the modern boxer is temperament. Gather any number of Boxer-people together—show breeders, pet owners, shelter rescuers--and the discussion will quickly turn to personal experience with individual Boxers. No longer focusing on toplines and angulation, long sits and downs, judging and politics, all will eagerly recount the highlights of the lives they have lived with the dogs they have come to love. Dogs long gone…thirty years deceased…come to life in these stories as if they breathed anew.

The very essence of the Boxer is his positive outlook on life. Never a ‘glass half empty’ sort of dog, the Boxer contemplates each day as if he lived inside his own personal pleasure palace. He may as well have invented the game of ‘Keep Away,’ thrilled as he is to have you, his adored Master, try in vain to snatch his favorite squeaky out of those formidable jaws. Into elder age, the Boxer treasures his toys. Rushing about his yard at sometimes breakneck speed, he takes the greatest pride in being able to dodge around you at the last crucial second, sparing you a knockdown as if there had never been the slightest danger. If challenged, we know no better guard dog.

As active and exuberant as the Boxer is, it is probably his quiet & gentle side, his ability to sense the moods of his Master and react accordingly, that endears him to us most. Many a story is told about the intuitive young Boxer who became so quiet and so especially loving at a time of great sadness among his household humans. He is quite likely to put his beloved toys aside in order to comfort us. He looks at us with ‘those eyes’ to try to enhance our pleasures or assuage our pain.

And so it is temperament that matters most. Of course we value other attributes—intelligence and beauty, for example…desirable traits, to be sure…but never as important as the quintessential nature of the dog and how it related to us during its years within the family. And that is why, above all else, it is imperative that we who breed Boxers do not compromise on temperament when we choose future sires and dams to carry on our bloodlines. It is not for us to find excuses to breed the overly aggressive or shy dog, the one that doesn’t really like men, or startles at the wind in the willows. That is not a Boxer that will be remembered with nearly the fondness of those who are friendly and eager to greet the world each morning, who know how to insinuate themselves into the very fabric of the family. These are the ones we try to replicate (though we never really can); these are the dogs for whom we mourn most during quiet reflective evenings. What has gone before we cannot afford to lose—these are the dogs that represent the true future of the breed.

Stephanie Abraham
P. O. Box 346
Scotland, CT 06264