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Virginia Zurflieh, Scarborough Boxers

ENGLAND

Huge public flower gardens with every imaginable variety of ornamental and the grass underneath the myriad rose bushes covered with pink and white "petal drifts," looking like patches of pastel snow; "postage stamp" private flower gardens tucked neatly into tiny back or front yards; hanging flower baskets on city streets; blooming flower pots on every patio; cut flowers for sale in shops next to the butcher’s and baker’s; roses climbing over every fence, gate, and wall. And the weather consistently cool and overcast, with only occasional flashes of bright, but amazingly, not hot sunshine.

I came home to Florida determined to duplicate one of those exquisite, yet understated, English gardens in my own back yard, to find that in my ten days’ absence, the wedelia had completely overgrown the front walk and the patio in the back was not visible at all under the tangled lush green cover of a wild vine that had also sent searching tendrils under the sliding glass doors and into the living room! (Nothing understated about Florida flora...) In the 95 degree heat and daily thunder and lightning storms, I quickly gave up my dream of an English garden and settled for heat-resistant zinnias and trying to beat the jungle back out of the house.

ENGLISH BOXERS

In an entry of 210 at Windsor’s 50th championship dog show, what struck my fellow American breeders and me most was the consistency of the Boxer exhibits: consistently strong heads and beautiful expressions on consistently medium-sized, square bodies, with consistently heavy, "round" bone and small (for all that bone), tight feet with super-short toes. Most of the exhibits were even the same color - a glossy, rich mahagony brindle with black, black masks and discreet white markings. We were told that there’s a big difference in size and style between the English and "Continental" type Boxers that are shown in the UK, but either the Continentals had skipped this show, or we missed them in running back and forth from dogs to bitches, which were being judged in separate rings at the same time. (We did see a Norwegian import of Continental breeding at Bruce and Jo Cattanach’s home later in the day. See photos of Cavajes Beyond Belief of Steynmere in this article.)

Oh, we saw some of the same faults that one sees in US show rings - long, soft backs, low tailsets, and poor movement -- and a problem that one doesn’t usually see in the US -- very heavily wrinkled heads, the dogs looking for all the world like the Klingons on Star Trek. But overall, even the quality of the entries was far more consistent than in North American show rings. To my eyes, there was no big difference in quality and type between 1st and 5th in any of the huge classes, and I saw only one Boxer in the whole entry that seemed the least bit hesitant -- and that may have been due to inept handling. I came away from the Windsor show determined to add some of the utter "correctness" of the British Boxer to my own breeding program.

On reflection, however, it occurred to me that while I might be able to "appropriate" individual characteristics of the British Boxer to improve the dogs in my own backyard, a "whole dog" -- even if one were able to import a top UK winner -- would most probably NOT be a top winner in the US. No, I'm not talking about uncropped ears. The fact is that British Boxers, for all their virtues, are just too different from their American counterparts. And in my opinion, the very things that contribute to the British Boxers’ "correctness"-- a small, homogeneous gene pool and a strict quarantine plus supreme emphasis on the breed ring over the group and BIS rings -- are the things that would keep a typical UK import from being a big winner in the US.

Considering the huge disparity in size between the two countries and between the numbers of shows available to the exhibitors each year (39 championship shows in the UK versus over a thousand all-breed and specialty shows in the US), is it any wonder that our breeding programs and dog shows have evolved in very different ways? Or that "Never the Twain Shall Meet"?

THE DIFFERENCES

Let’s do the math first: in a small country like the UK, the exhibitors can quickly travel from one end of the country to the other to get to those 39 ch’ship shows...and never see a strange face! And since almost the whole point of the show is winning the Challenge Certificate (the UK version of Winners Dog and Winners Bitch), and not "getting out of the breed" and going on to Group and BIS competition, the champions compete with all the non-champions in the classes for the CC. (Best of Breed is awarded to one of the two CC winners.) A top CC-winning UK dog or bitch that is exhibited at most of those 39 shows and wins a large percentage of the 39 CC’s available for its sex can prevent an up-and-coming "class" dog or bitch from ever winning the three CC’s needed for a championship. And by and large, the exhibitors all know one another and one another’s boxers, and know when they make their entries what the competition is likely to be...not just at a local show, but countrywide! Furthermore, most UK exhibitors handle their own dogs (for better or worse :-), and therefore experience the thrill of victory largely on the dog’s merits, not those of the handler. I’m sure there are UK exhibitors who cry politics when they don’t win just like their US counterparts, but given the consistent type of the majority of the boxers exhibited, the extraordinarily competitive championship process, and the great emphasis on breed-level competition, I can’t imagine that a truly untypical, shy, or "controversial" exhibit would ever be a top winner in the UK -- even if it were able to squeak by to a championship under three "unconventional" British or foreign judges. Furthermore, since everyone knows everyone else and sees everyone else’s dogs in the UK, I can’t imagine that a truly untypical or shy dog would ever be a top sire there, either.

Contrast that scenario with the situation in the US: the sheer size of our country, the myriad shows and show circuits available on almost every weekend, the tremendous diversity of breeders and boxer "lines," the huge emphasis on Group and BIS competition, a well-established cadre of professional handlers, and the fact that top winning dogs from one area of the country are sometimes never seen in any other area and that NA breeders routinely ship their bitches to be bred to a dog they’ve never seen "in person"....well, all those things can’t help but add up to a wide variety of quality, type and style in the US, and very different goals for US and UK Boxer breeding programs.

AMERICAN BOXERS

In my opinion, the two most important contributions to the marked difference between UK and North American Boxers (and other breeds, too, I would think) are the stress placed on Group and BIS-level competition here, and the virtual necessity of hiring a "top" professional handler and spending a bundle of money if you want a "top" winner in the US -- a dog or bitch that can consistently win Best of Breed and amass large numbers of wins at the Group and BIS level. In other words, it seems to me that the goal of Boxer breeders in Great Britain is to produce the best BOXER in the ring; while the goal of NA breeders is to produce the best SHOW DOG.

It seems obvious that when Boxer breeders are competing only with other Boxer breeders to produce the best Boxer in the ring, as determined mostly by breed-specialist judges, almost all the emphasis will be on breed type...sometimes to the point of exaggeration (hence, the dogs we saw at Windsor and elsewhere with unbalanced heads -- ultra-short muzzles, too much wrinkle and flew, and other evidence of too much of a good thing).

On the other hand, when Boxer breeders are competing with Dobe and Giant Schnauzer breeders, as well as Standard Poodle, Bichon Frise, and Golden Retriever breeders to produce the best show dog in the ring, as determined mostly by all-rounders, the exaggeration is not focused on breed type. Instead, we seem to encourage in our breeding programs anything that will make the dog stand out in a crowd: extra size and height, spectacular movement, a swan-like neck, an exaggerated sloping topline, and most of all, tremendous animation and showmanship. We want a Boxer that is "on" 24/7 -- constantly striking poses, dashing madly around the ring, hyper-alert to the smallest sound, and absolutely avid for liver. Unfortunately, as Tim Hutchings pointed out in an article on the 2000 ABC in the latest Boxer Quarterly, in which he noted that he’d been shocked to see several dogs excused from the ring at the ABC on the grounds of temperament, "In the never-ending quest for the maniac showman, they [American breeders] are ending up with a few simple maniacs along the way." Sad but completely true. Remember all those bitches shipped to be bred to dogs their owners have never seen? How can one judge a dog’s temperament from a win photo in a magazine?

THE EMPEROR’S NEW CLOTHES

Our professional handler system also contributes to the stress on movement, "flash," and showmanship over breed type in NA. Give one of the talented and influential top professionals a dog that will run around the ring like a house afire and snap liver out of the air, pay him/her $50,000 a year to show it (not including entries, advertising, etc.) and chances are he or she will make the dog into a big winner. Of course, it’s nice if the wealthy owner’s "dog of the moment" is also the best Boxer in the ring, but that’s definitely not a requirement. And once the handler has established the dog as a big winner, the "Emperor’s New Clothes" syndrome sets in: subsequent judges cannot or will not see what is patently obvious to any disinterested observer -- that the big winner is shy...or long...or has an untypical head...or a wry bite. And since almost everyone in the US rushes to breed to the latest big winner, the Boxer ring will soon be full of Ch. Big Winner’s offspring, who are shy...or long...or have untypical heads...or bad bites.

We’ve included in this article a number of photos taken at Windsor and the 2000 ABC to illustrate some of the differences in type we noted between English and American Boxers. For additional comparisons, click on the link to the June 2000 (ABC Issue) edition of BU.

IN CLOSING...

Having said all of the above, I certainly don’t mean to imply that there are no good boxers in the US. We American breeders, and our Canadian neighbors to the north, produce many splendid examples of the breed every year -- Boxers with fine temperaments, beautiful chiseled heads, loads of breed type, and a superb balance of substance to elegance. (I’d like to think I’ve produced one or two myself. :-) But I still maintain that even the best UK and American Boxers are very different from one another, and given the difference between the show scenes and breeding goals of our two countries, I don’t see how the situation could ever be otherwise.