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BOXER BYTES
by Stephanie Abraham
(Editor’s note: This was written in response to the perennial
"white haws" thread on the Showboxer-L.)
WHITE HAWS…BEFORE & AFTER 1968
White haws ("visible conjunctiva") were specifically listed
as a fault in our first 1938 American standard. This carried through
for revisions in 1947, 1951, and 1962. In 1968 and onwards it was
dropped. Clearly, this change coincided with the fancy's
growing love affair with "flash." It does seem to me
that we were being self-serving to eliminate this as a stated fault just
because we were producing more of it. As Bruce Cattanach and others
have said, flash to flash begets a higher percentage of unpigmented haws.
What is interesting to me is how we all respond to this issue--do we
try to go back to the breed type that was so much more consistent in
producing black haws—i.e.: less flashy dogs? Or are we happy
with the flashy white markings that are arresting in style, but produce
more unpigmented third eyelids? Or, as some have suggested, do we only
breed those dogs who have dark haws, flashy or not flashy? It's an
interesting dilemma. I seem not to have been fortunate in that, of
our light hawed pups, with very tight eyes, the haws still affected
expression adversely. They were almost always pink and came up
rather high on the inside of the eye. Light haws that are insignificant
don't bother me at all--I don't even notice them. I just haven't
been lucky enough to "get" those! No matter what our
present Standard does or does not say, haws that affect expression cannot
be considered desirable. If the expression suffers, surely they
are a problem. And that lovely, gentle, optimal expression IS endorsed in
all the modern Standard revisions. Ironically, the delineation of proper
expression was expanded in 1968 (to include the" mood-mirroring"
quality of the eyes) at the same time that haws were ignored.
I realize that there were many influential stud dogs with one or more
light haws. But I don't think anyone can lay "blame" on
them or any other animals, male or female, in the transmission of
this trait. The fact is that the more white we want, the fewer black haws
we will get. It just comes with the territory, and I've had light haws
when I least expected them, and vice versa, in plain puppies as well as
flashy ones. Yet, while I know that our Boxers don't walk on their
haws, they don't walk on their heads either--and still, I trust we insist
on good ones!
Personally, I think those earlier Standards had the right idea...
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