My wife and I purchased a male Boxer two years ago this September. We were going to get two of them but being new first time dog owners we decided not to. Around the first year of having our male, a carpenter that was in our sub/div seen us walking our dog and stop to talk to us. He said that a stray female boxer fawn in color has been staying at his house as a unwelcome guest. He asked if we wanted to take her from him. Well I went to his house to find a skinny, very dirty female Boxer less than one year old. Did I mention dirty, her ears were black with dirt and covered with fleas and ticks. This dog had a collar with rabies tag from a local vet. I knew I had somebody's baby and the right thing to do was to find the owner. If it was my Boxer I would hope someone would try to find me. I went to the vet on the rabies tag and they did not remember seeing this dog before. The number on the tag was for an owner of another dog who did not own a Boxer and his dog had lost that collar and someone put it on this Boxer. He also has not seen this dog before. I took her home and wash and wash her to get her clean and kill the fleas and ticks. I introduced her to our male and they did the normal dog greeting of smelling. It was not long after that she was growling and snapping at my male. She is a lot smaller than him and also braver to be doing this because he towers over her. This started around food and where she wanted to lay down at. So I had to kept some distance between them. I ran a lost and found ad in the local paper which they did for free for six weeks. I had a couple of calls but no owners were found. During this time I took her to my vet for the works cause I did not know what she has had or not had and I did not want anything to make my male sick. My wife did not like this dog because of the problems it was causing with our male and she wanted to take her to local animal control. I talked with the vet about this problem and he said that because she has been on the run she has to defend what she has to keep it and that is what she has been doing running lose. He said if I keep her she may quit this behavior once she realizes that she has a place to stay with food and friendship from us and our male Boxer. He also said that if she does change she might be real protective of my wife and I because we have taken her off the street and provided her a place to stay, so be careful around starangers. Well, we never found the owner and we still have both dogs and they are now the best of friends. They will even eat out of the same food bowl with out no problem, they share everything from toys to beds. Where you see one the other is close by. I do have two of everything though. I got my male fixed not to long after that and the female fixed after she went through her first heat. She is a mean dog and gets my male all fired up when she hears a noise or if someone knocks on the door or when somebody is out side of the house, it does not matter if they walk by on the sidewalk or stop in the street in a car, she is letting them know she is there and watching. My male is not like that but she gets him started when she starts barking and growling. When we have guest over she is okay once she figures out they are our friends and they are welcomed here. All she just wants is some loving from them and tries to be a lap dog. I think she can sense this somehow cause I seen a different reaction from say a salesperson or complete stranger then from a guest that might come up. Another thing is when I'm home she follows me everywhere. Like right now she is curled up under my feet at the computer table. If I get up to leave she will follow me where ever I go. My wife and I are expecting are first baby next week so this is going to be something we have to watch to see where it is going to go. I have notice that when we have been working in the baby's room getting it ready, my female will lay down under the crib the whole time. So far the only thing I regret is not having her sooner. I won't trade my Boxers for anything!!!
