Boxer History in the United States
The very earliest unofficial accounts of boxers in the United States mention two boxers being shown at the Westminster Kennel Club Show in 1898. AKC Judge Charles G. Hopton remembers the two boxers being shown in New York City. Judge Frank Begler recalls rumors of boxers being shown in Chicago in 1904. The first recorded boxer to finish a championship in the United States was German Champion Damph von Dom in 1915, a dog that belonged to New York Governor Herbert G. Lehman and his wife.
The boxer is known as a gentle or sometimes a hearing guard dog rather than a biting guard dog. While some boxers certainly will bite, boxers as a breed tend to guard by standing their ground. If pushed, they have been known to body slam assailants. Bitches as small as twenty-two inches have been known to slam a misbehaving horse to the ground.
The 1930s were a period of great development for the American Kennel Club and dog shows in general. Obedience regulations were adopted in 1936, and professional handlers were required to be licensed. By 1938, the AKC was issuing championship certificates. Because many of the top winning dogs were from Europe and not registered by the AKC, the AKC began offering cash prizes for American-bred dogs. As a result, many parent clubs of all breeds were formed in the 1930s, including the American Boxer Club (founded in 1935).
Although the early American boxer was greatly influenced by the German boxers, the people founding the American Boxer Club were more influenced by the Austrian boxer breeders, who followed a much plainer standard. When Austria revised its standard to be in line with Germany, the United States continued under the greater influence of the German Boxer Club. The American Boxer Club is still in existence today and is the parent club to the many local AKC boxer clubs around the nation.
Some people are surprised to learn that boxers did not begin to catch on as a breed in the United States until the 1930s. Boxer popularity has since grown and attracted owners, breeders, and trainers with many different interests.
Boxers were the AKC's seventeenth most popular breed in the early 1990s. At the same time, the popularity of other guard dogs began to wane, including rottweilers, chow chows, pit bulls, Dobermans, and German shepherds. This may be because boxers, as a gentle guard breed, were perceived to incur less liability. What surprised many owners interested in the boxer's guard capabilities was the breed's high energy level. That drove some people who simply wanted a guard dog away from boxers and back to their more familiar (and lethargic) breeds.
