Boxer

At a dog show in Munich in 1895, the Boxer was unveiled as a breed for the very first time. They are a medium sized dog and are stocky built. They have a soft coat with short hair, and it remains very close to their bodies. It may or may not have white markings across their chests. They are said to be brachycephalic, which means they have short and broad skulls with a square shaped muzzle. Their bites are very powerful as they have strong jaws, this is the reason they can hang on to their prey with ease. These breed of dogs originate from Bullenbeissers and the English Bull dogs.

Fully grown and healthy Boxers weigh in at around 55 and 70 pounds (25 and 32 kg). They stand tall at around 56 to 63 cm (22 to 25 inches) for the fully grown males, and their female counter parts stand tall at around 53 to 60 cm (21 to 23.5 inches). Boxers most often have the coat combination of the colours brindle and fawn. Most of them even have a white underbelly and a little bit of white hair scattered along the feet too.

They never occur in pure black colours as it is not in their genes, but if they did, that only means they aren’t the pure bred ones. The white hair normally occupy less than one third of their coat. If it’s more than one third, the dog is more of a “White” Boxer, and the percentage of this occurring is around 20 to 25% among the whole breed. They still remain of the Brindle and Fawn colour, but the white marking will have a larger area of occupancy on their coats.

Boxers are good with children and very playful too. They are very active dogs and are full of energy, this is the reason they need their share of daily exercises to keep them from getting bored. More bored they get, chances are they start chewing things they find around the household or even digging up your back yard for fun in some cases. They will need basic obedience training from a young age itself, It is very necessary as they can get extremely determined at times and end up behaving inappropriately. Like most friendly breeds, Boxers like socialising with humans and they do not get aggressive. This is the reason they wouldn’t make as good guard dogs.

Boxers like most breeds are prone to many a diseases. A survey conducted by the UK Kennel Club reports that 38.5% of the dogs died due to cancer, 21.5% died from old age, 6.9% died because of cardiac problems and the other 6.9% died of intestinal issues. It is very advisable to the owners of these dogs to carry out controlled breeding by having their dogs checked to these diseases. This way the occurrence of these diseases in the future generations will be reduced. It is also advisable to not use any veterinary sedatives such as acepromazine because these dogs are hypotensive.