Boxer

It is a medium sized dog which its body is short, compact and significantly solid. This type of dog has a visible musculature; a characteristic short, well-built and square muzzle and a look comparable to the human one. The Boxer is the athlete dog among all the canine breeds. The dog gives the impression of being unmanageable and its appearance may instill fear, although its character is rather nice, cheerful and it remains young at heart. This animal is absolutely trustworthy and has a great balance; it becomes fond of kids playing with them in an affectionate way turning into, at the same time, an amazing defender.

The breed, which is relatively young, was made about the end of the last century under a strict criterion of selection in the morphological aspect and even in the characters. This variety of dog was made in 1850 in Munich crossing the fierce German Bullenbeiser of that time with the English Bulldog. The result of the crossbreed was a compact and firm animal which kept the main characteristics of the Bulldog. Those ones were a wide and strong muzzle and a prognathous jaw where the lower jaw projected outwards the upper one.

Regarding the selection, some of the drawback of the mentioned above breeds were tried to remove, such as their heavy constitution and their excessive white coat. The first specimens were white with long tawny or tabby stripes. The first female Boxer inscribed in the German book of origins was almost white, whereas the first male Boxer to participate in a canine exhibition was in 1895 where an increase interest and recognition for this type of dog arose.

According to recent history, the Boxer was one of a few other breeds made by humans which could spread in less than a century from Germany to all the continents with a highly popularity that increased considerably. Nowadays, the Boxer in conjunction with the Doberman were the breeds created to defense which could easily spread allover the world in such a way that even the German people, who were their creators, were surprised.

The boxer is a short dog of medium size so as its body gives the impression of being a perfect square with robust skeleton and an exceptional well developed musculature. While the main characteristics of this animal are: the head with a rather narrow skull; the sharp marked angle between the forehead and the muzzle; the convergent skull facial axes and a strong, well built and square muzzle with a quite wide jaw which its lower part projects outwards the upper one, called prognathous.

The Boxer's muzzle must look like a perfect cube wherever you look at it; what is more, it must be short, wide with a sharp marked chin and with an upper lip slightly curved which covers the powerful teeth. The ears, which their points of insertion are on the top of the head, are cut just for esthetic reasons.

The long, powerful, muscular neck without dewlap; the well developed thorax; the solid top figure; the upright extremities make it into an extraordinary powerful and agile dog, a human's masterpiece. Its tight and thin skin highlights a really marked musculature. It seems that the word "Boxer" comes from the athletes that perform the boxing "noble art" (however it is just a hypothesis, as other breeds, the etymology of their names is uncertain).

Its coat with short, shiny hair of vitreous texture, uniform all over the body, can be color tawny or tabby, plain or with white stripes that can not cover more than a third part of the total coat. Either in the tawny or in the tabby types must have a beautiful black mask on the muzzle which can not overpass the eyes level because it can provoke an excessive darkening in its expression that must be frank and loyal. The eyes must be as dark as possible, rounded, wide apart among them and with noticeable pigmentation on the palpebral corner. According to the breed, it is possible to say that the Boxer is beautiful or it is not a Boxer owing to the head as well as the body characteristics.

Training. The training of this type of breed must be performed in an extremely careful and patient way almost as a game. However, once it had learnt the different notions we can be sure that it hardly would forget about that. A demonstration is the increased number of Boxers which nowadays obtain the best results in work test meat for defense breeds.

The obedience, defense and attack exercises must be gradually taught, as shown the images on the previous pages. The training must start with the easier exercises during the ninth or tenth month in order to teach the most complicated ones when the dog is an adult. Once it is trained with this method, our friend will become into a security to its owner and its whole family during it entirely life. Because of those characteristics, it is also used in some countries as guide dogs for blind people and even used by the police competing with the well known and spread German shepherd.

In about all Europe, the breeding of these animals had acquired similar proportions to the German breeders' ones, the creators and guards of the esthetics and psychic qualities of the Boxer.

That phrase of the magnificent breed was said by a famous expert and contains all what is possible to say about the Boxer by means of jovial, affable personality, affectionate with kids but, if it is necessary it knows how to be determined and fierce. It keeps those characteristics during its whole life. This dog is quiet, which adapts to live in the garden as well as inside the house. It almost never barks but when it does so is because it has a good motive to do so. It is a rather clean animal, its hair keeps shining with very few work on it. Whenever you take it for a walk with a leash, it is a great party for it and if it get the habit it would be necessary to take it for a walk always.

It is relatively easy to train this type of dog owing to its obedient and at the same time determined character and because of its innate qualities, it is consider to be one of the best dogs in defense, getting even more acceptation and success.

The person who has got a Boxer would hardly adapt to another breed because of its unique qualities.

Height and weight. Height up to the cross is in males 22/23.5 inches and for females is 21.5/23 inches. Weight in males is above 66 pounds with the higher height approximately of 23.5 inches and for females is 62 pounds.

Head. It is well-proportioned with squared muzzle and a long black nose, turned a bit upward. Mandible: the lower jaw projected outwards (prognathous), a thick upper lip which is over the canine teeth of the mentioned jaw. It has healthy and strong teeth with canine teeth wide apart among them. The nasal-frontal notch is clearly marked. Its rounded skull has a length as twice the nasal shank.

Eyes. The Boxer has rounded, dark brown eyes, not so small, not so bulgy nor sunken.

Ears. They are of high insertion, cut on the top, discreetly long and perfectly straight.

Neck. It is rounded with the correct length, strong, muscular, without dewlap.

Extremities. They are straight and parallel with long shoulders. The long leg is in right angle with the shoulder. The long and vertical foreleg has strong muscles. The carpus is good marked but not swollen. The short metacarpus is slightly oblique and almost perpendicular to the ground. The thigh is thick, curved and with very developed muscles. The hock angle is of 140º, the short metacarpus is lightly sloping in relation to the ground. The small feet, in the case of the anterior ones, have close and curved toes while the posterior limbs have long toes.

Body. The thorax goes up to the thighs with the same depth of the half one of the height up to the cross. The ribs, which go inward, are arched but not rounded. The back is short, straight, wide and muscular with very marked cross slightly sloping and thick muscle group.

Tale. It is in high insertion. It is cut in a special way so as it goes upwards.

Coat. It is short and shiny. Its color is from yellow to tawny or sometimes tabby, in other words, with dark or black transverse strips that go to the thigh. A black mask must be in the muzzle.

Diet. In order to have a boxer, is necessary to know with precision the feed demand and necessities mainly on the first stage of its life so as to make the basis of a normal physical development. Its diary necessities in an adult age dog are from 1,800/2,100 calories according to the physical activity it performs.

The first months. The extreme sensitivity of its character makes the Boxer needs attentive cares in the first period of its life. Such cares consisted mainly in caress (hold it in one's arms, brush it, etc.) and must start from the fourth or sixth week of its life, with a frequency of at least 10 to 30 minutes a day. This will allow the Boxer to "socialize". This socialization would make the animal to express loyalty, courage, calm tempered, its affection to kids when they are playing and certain facility to be trained.

Daily cares. The straight Boxer's coat exempts its owner from removing hair balls over the entire floors house every day. The coat has another advantage, it prevent parasites, dirt and dust from being in contact with the skin. It is advisable to use a glove to rub its straight hair.

Diseases. As the Boxer is wide spread all over the world, many were the researches done about the illnesses that affect this breed. Next we are going to enumerate some of the diseases trying not to frighten neither the person who has already a Boxer nor the one who wants to have one. The old age dog has more predisposition to get tumors which are solid nodules that can appear in any part of the body. They must be surgically removed taking onto account that 30% of them are malignant.

Located in the gums, these dogs may have the more rare neoplastic form with other brachycephal ones but of the benign type and with fibrous characteristics. Sometimes, the female Boxer has symptoms in the vagina which is noticeably swollen with a mucous membrane prolapsed because of hyperestrogenism. The recommended therapy is based on progesterone or on a surgery by means of an ovariectomy. The Boxer has more frequent, than other breeds, a chronic ulcerative colitis that shows in less that two year specimen, an elimination of soft and smelly feces. In this case, therapy with antibiotic is given orally.
Among the diseases that can affect the old Boxer, it is necessary to mention a false epilepsy cause by the lack of calcium and vitamin B. the therapy consists in a very slowly intravenous injection of 5-20 ml of calcium gluconate to 10% follow by calcium gluconate's oral pills and vitamin B.

Otras secciones interesantes...
Dogs - Veterinarians - Toy Dogs - Natural feeding - Basic health care - Dog and society - Dental Care - Responsible Dog Ownership - Poisonings - Choosing a Cat Food - History and myths - Bones and muscles disorders - Hematology disorders - Alternative Medicine - Teratology -