50 Fun Facts About Boxer Dog

Its courage and intelligence have long made the Boxer a recognised breed for which job?

Police work: the Boxer is an officially recognised service-dog breed in its homeland, and armies used it as a messenger and pack carrier in both world wars.

Which old hunting breed is the Boxer's main ancestor?

Bullenbeisser means 'bull biter'. When the great estates broke up and their hunts ended, the big hunter lost its job and was bred down into the lighter Boxer.

The Boxer's extinct ancestor was used for centuries to hunt which animals?

Bear, wild boar and deer: the dog had to seize the quarry and hold it until the hunters came up, which is why breeders prized the widest possible jaws.

In which city was the first Boxer club founded in 1895?

Munich: three fanciers there set out to fix the breed's type, put Boxers on show to win it a following, and founded the club in the same campaign.

Boxers made their show debut in the 1890s at an event held for which other breed?

St. Bernards: the St. Bernard club agreed to add a trial class for Boxers. Just one dog was entered, its owner talked into it, and it won and became No. 1 in the stud book.

How did the first Boxer breeders fix the new breed's type within a few generations?

Close inbreeding: the foundation sire, Box, was mated back to his own mother, and the breed's founding female descends from that litter.

Flocki, the first dog in the Boxer stud book, was sired by a dog of which other breed?

Bulldog: the same dog, Tom, was mated to Flocki's mother a second time, and through that later litter he stands behind almost every Boxer pedigree since.

Flora, the brindle female at the root of the first Boxer pedigrees, came to Germany from which neighbouring country?

France: the imported Flora was bred to a local dog, and their fawn-and-white son, Lechner's Box, became the grandsire of the first dog entered in the Boxer stud book.

Which broad family of dogs does the Boxer belong to?

Mastiffs: breed histories trace the type to the powerful war dogs of the ancient world, and the world canine federation still files the Boxer with its mastiff-type breeds.

The Boxer Bang Away won Best in Show at which event in 1951?

Westminster: Bang Away's win was the third there for a Boxer in five years, and the AKC dates the breed's American heyday from his celebrity.

What made the Boxer suddenly popular abroad?

Returning soldiers: the Second World War had put Boxers to work beside the troops, and the servicemen who met them there created instant demand for the breed.

Which part of the Boxer gives the breed its 'unique individual stamp', in the words of its standard?

Head: its broad, blunt muzzle, the legacy of a catch dog bred for the widest jaws, is a third of the head's length and must balance the skull.

Which kind of bite does the Boxer's breed standard call for?

Undershot bite: the lower jaw juts beyond the upper, and the thick upper lip pads out the space, propped on the lower canines.

Breed histories trace the Boxer's type to war dogs kept some 4,000 years ago by which people?

The Assyrians bred powerful, fearless dogs for battle, and their descendants spread across Europe to become the hunting dogs of medieval Germany.

Boxers with white markings on the neck or face are known as what?

Flashy: the white trim is called flash, and because a flashy dog carries one copy of the white-spotting gene, two flashy parents can have all-white puppies.

Why are there no purebred black Boxers?

The breed lacks the gene: dogs sold as black are brindles striped so heavily that the fawn barely shows, a sales pitch the American Boxer Club condemns.

Under American Kennel Club rules, which activity are white Boxers barred from?

The show ring: the standard disqualifies any Boxer more than one-third white, yet the breed's own club rates white dogs the equal of any other in obedience, agility and therapy work.

The gene behind the white Boxer's coat is linked to which inherited condition?

Deafness: the gene leaves the inner ear without the pigment cells it needs, so a white Boxer may be deaf in one ear or both.

Where do the AKC and the Boxer's own breed club both say the dog should be kept?

Inside the house: both bodies warn that the Boxer has little tolerance for extremes of heat or cold, so a life spent outdoors is ruled out.

To get Boxers born short-tailed, a British geneticist crossed in which breed?

Pembroke Welsh Corgi: Bruce Cattanach made the cross in 1992, expecting a ban on docking, then bred back to Boxers until the Kennel Club registered the line.

At what age is a Boxer's tail typically docked where the practice is still allowed?

3–5 days: puppies are docked that young without anaesthetic, and pressure from vets has since seen docking banned in a number of countries.

The AKC's 2005 Boxer standard accepted the natural ear but said which feature 'should be severely penalized'?

An undocked tail: across Europe the rule runs the other way, since the international standard says the tail is of normal length and left natural.

In Stanley Coren's The Intelligence of Dogs, how is the Boxer's obedience intelligence rated?

Average: Coren's poll of obedience judges put the breed 48th, and the Boxer club's columnist shot back that no dog trusted to carry messages behind enemy lines is 48th at anything.

Boxers have a reputation for being what, a trait often blamed on the wrong kind of training?

Headstrong: harsh, correction-based drilling tends to backfire with Boxers, which respond far better to rewards such as clicker training that let them work a problem out.

Seen from the side, the ideal Boxer's body should fit which shape?

A square: the length from chest to rump should equal the height at the shoulder, a compact build meant to combine strength with agility.

Boxers are among the breeds most prone to degenerative myelopathy, a disease likened to ALS that attacks what?

The spinal cord: it usually starts after the age of seven with weak, wobbly hind legs and ends in paralysis, and it is tied to a mutation in SOD1, a gene also linked to ALS in people.

Arrhythmogenic right ventricular disease is so typical of Boxers that it is nicknamed what?

Boxer cardiomyopathy sets off erratic heartbeats that can make an apparently healthy adult faint or die suddenly, and it mirrors a human heart disease so closely that the breed is studied as a model for it.

What was the leading cause of death among Boxers in a UK Kennel Club health survey?

Cancer: it caused 38.5% of the deaths reported, nearly twice as many as old age, and Boxers in the survey died about a year younger than dogs overall.

Slow-healing sores that vets call 'Boxer ulcers' form on which part of the dog?

The eye: the ulcer sits on the clear front surface, where the top layer fails to stick to the tissue beneath, so it heals slowly until a vet clears the loose layer away.

In a Dutch study, about what share of Boxer puppies died before seven weeks?

20%: of more than 2,600 puppies followed, 22% were dead before weaning, and infection took more of them as litters grew more closely related.

Histiocytic ulcerative inflammation of the bowel is so typical of Boxers that vets nickname it what?

Boxer colitis: an E. coli that burrows into the gut wall drives the disease, and it goes into remission once antibiotics clear the bacteria.

The Boxer belongs to which group in both the Kennel Club and the AKC?

Working: the group gathers dogs bred to guard and to rescue, and the rival United Kennel Club makes the point plainer by filing the Boxer under Guardian Dogs.

The popular story says the Boxer was named for which habit?

Sparring with its front paws: kennel clubs tell it that way, but German etymologists say only that 'Boxer', a prize-fighter, was borrowed from English and given to the dog for its readiness to fight.

Which facial marking does the Boxer standard require?

A dark mask: it must stay on the muzzle and contrast sharply with the rest of the face, because a mask that spreads too far makes the dog look sombre.

In the 1890s, dogs of the Boxer type carried which mocking nickname?

Bierboxer: the 'beer boxers' were a common sight, and the breed's official name, Deutscher Boxer, is said to have been coined with a nod to the nickname.

What did scientists publish in 2005 using DNA from a Boxer named Tasha?

The dog genome sequence: Tasha's DNA became the reference for all dogs, and researchers used it as a compass to compare ten other breeds, the grey wolf and the coyote.

On a brindle Boxer, the dark stripes should run parallel to which part of the body?

The ribs: the stripes must also stand out clearly from the fawn beneath, which is why a dog striped so heavily that it looks black falls short of the standard.

A dog named Boxer appears in which 1845 Charles Dickens book?

The Cricket on the Hearth: Boxer is the carrier John Peerybingle's dog, so the word was already doing duty as a dog's name half a century before the breed took shape.

Punch and Judy, Boxers awarded the Dickin Medal, saved two British officers where in 1946?

Palestine: the pair went for an armed man creeping up on the officers, and Punch took four bullets while Judy was left with a long graze down her back.

When a Boxer closes its mouth, what should never be left showing?

Its teeth or tongue: the jutting lower jaw makes that a real risk, so judges fault a Boxer whose teeth or tongue peep out when the mouth is shut.

Boxers with fawn stripes on an apparently black body are conventionally, if wrongly, called what?

Reverse brindles: the name has it backwards, since these are still fawn dogs whose black stripes are so heavy that little of the fawn shows through.

In the UK and Europe, richly coloured fawn Boxers are often called what?

Red: the Kennel Club registers such dogs as red, while the American standard has no red and calls every shade from light tan to mahogany fawn.

The Boxer standard calls the breed loyal to its family but what towards strangers?

Distrustful: that wariness, joined to alertness and strength, is what turns a playful family dog into a formidable guard.

The Brabanter, the smaller type of the Boxer's extinct ancestor, was bred in which present-day country?

Belgium: the forebear of this most German of breeds took shape outside Germany, in the old duchy of Brabant, as the smaller of two types of catch dog.

Which term describes the Boxer's skull shape?

Brachycephalic means short-headed, and the Kennel Club lists the Boxer with the flat-faced breeds whose crowded airways can make breathing noisy or laboured.

Friederun Stockmann, whose 'vom Dom' kennel shaped the modern Boxer, first met the breed through whom?

Her future husband: the art student fell for his Boxer, married him, and bred Dampf vom Dom, who in 1915 became the first Boxer champion in America.

What became of the founding club's first Boxer standard?

Changed little: much of the founders' text survives in today's standards, and the same club still sets the standard that the world canine federation adopts.

In a large Dutch study, what was the most frequent cause of death among Boxer puppies before seven weeks?

Stillbirth: it made up about a quarter of early deaths in the Dutch cohort studied, and puppies put down simply for being white accounted for nearly a fifth more.

Punch and Judy, two Boxers, won the Dickin Medal, often called the animals' version of which honour?

The Victoria Cross: founded in 1943 for animals serving in wartime, the bronze medal went far more often to messenger pigeons than to dogs in its first years.

When the great estate hunts ended, the Boxer's ancestor survived by serving which tradesmen?

Butchers and cattle dealers: the dog that once held game for huntsmen became a cattle dog, work that kept the type alive until the Boxer's founders took it up.