Reader Franziska Könnecke sent me these photos of “Cäsar” her grandparents’ boxer. Franzi writes about her golden retriever “Anna” on her blog, Anna and I: A Retriever’s Life.
Cäsar is a quite long-muzzled dog with an intelligent expression in his eyes. Unlike boxers in modern Germany, he is docked and cropped. I am unaware of exactly what lines he came from, or if those from the German Democratic Republic were different from those in the West.
But he was quite an amazing looking dog.
Back in the days long muzzles like this were nothing unusual. The Boxer today looks just ridicilous.
Hear! Hear!
Still looks like a Boxer, but without all the mess of the extreme head they now have. Nice dog.
The sharp stop in profile of most brachycephalic breeds is interpreted to mean an up-turned nose, but whenever you see the old style dogs it’s obvious that it’s only created by the dog’s strong brow – the skull itself is often straight or gently sloped.
Also notable is his excellent body condition. That shot of him reaching into the barrel is like a magnificent bronze statue.
Beautiful head on that dog; even the ear-crop is nicely done.
I’m a bit ambivalent about the boxer, loving the bouncy personality of well socialised boxers but sad at the tendency to short lives. Never any ear cropping here and tail docking became verboten about twenty years ago. I agree with the consensus here that the head depicted in the photo exemplifies the best way back towards sanity – not just for boxers but for other brachycephalic breeds also. If you say brachycephaly in dogs should be bred out altogether I can think of no counter argument except our strong attraction to anything vaguely anthropomorphic, maybe.
Beautiful dog! Shame about the ears, though.
Elizabeth