Image courtesy of Nara U. From Megargee work in 1953.
I’ve heard two histories of the boxer dog.
One of them is just as Megargee describes it– a dog like a dogue de Bordeaux that was bred down into a German boar catcher.
I’ve even heard it suggested that the South African boerboel is actually almost entirely derived from the Brabanter bullenbeisser, which supposedly looked like a bullmastiff or dogue de Bordeaux in its original form. However, there is also a lot of evidence that the boerboel’s affinity with the bullmastiff comes from heavy crossbreeding from bullmastiffs that were imported by the De Beers diamond company.
I don’t know enough about boerboels to vouch for the veracity of either theory, but I do think there may be a bit of an error in assuming that the boxer was just a bred down dogue de Bordeaux or bullmastiff.
My take on it is that the original bullenbeissers were actually virtually indistinguishable from the dog that we call the Alano Español or “Spanish bulldog.”
Here’s an image of a modern alano:
And here are German bullenbeissers on a boar hunt:
And here is the famous image of a German bullenbeisser:
I would even go as far as to suggest that the bullenbeissers and the alano are actually the same breed. If you think about it, it may have been that the Spanish introduced this dog to the Low Countries, which Spain once ruled, and to parts of the German-speaking world, where the Spanish and Austria Hapsburgs ruled various kingdoms and principalities.
The bullenbeissers of yore and the Spanish bulldog of today are both larger than the typical boxer, which was bred down through the use of English bulldog blood, but that was not to produce a hunting or working dog.
It was to produce a fancier version of the bullenbeisser type. Stockmann, the man quoted in the piece, actually was instrumental in changing the bulldog-type boxer back into something longer-legged and more athletic, a dog more suitable for use as a sentry and messenger dog in the First World War. (Stockmann’s prose in the preceding link is probably the best description of boxer dog behavior and attributes that I’ve ever read.)
The boxer went from being the bullenbeisser to the bulldog cross show dog back into a working bulldog.
Stockmann was correct in saying that the boxer was bred down from the bullenbeisser, but the bullenbeisser was not like a dogue de Bordeaux, a Bullmastiff, or a boerboel. It was more like a big alano-type bulldog.
without disagreeing, there is evidence of introduction from the “Rottweiler” type dogs that were used for driving and “baiting” cattle. Having seen a number of boxers work livestock, their working style is very much similar to that of a lighter, faster Rottweiler (as opposed to the style of many other breeds of herding dogs) and they certainly clearly have the gathering, collecting and management instincts for herding that are rarely encountered as a package unless some selection in that direction has occurred sometime in the breed history (for example, I’ve seen or actually tested Rhodesian ridgebacks, a dane, a Labrador, a number of mix breeds – some clearly part BC or other herding breed, and two Am staffs. ). One of the things that gets lost in histories of breeds is that the bragging information (big game hunter) or fancy information (show types) gets transmitted, but the use as a peasants’ dog (herding, guarding the farm, butcher’s drover and catch dog) gets omitted. Even Nat Geo, when they wrote an article about a herding peoples, has neglected to discuss their dogs (you only knew these folk had and used such because they happened to be in some photos that showed they were being used, and even then the photos failed to say anything about it).
Excellent point, that the “common” dogs dogs seldom received notice. Likely the dog world of today would know nothing whatever of the Tweed Water Spaniel, had not Dudley Marjoribanks (Lord Tweedmouth) made note of them in the record book of his line of yellow retrievers. Even today, how many books are written about the working spaniels of the UK, or the American farm dog? Hunt terriers were overlooked by most, until given Parson Russell’s name and “recognized”.
It is very likey that the Bullenbeisser and the Spanish Alano were the same or very similar dogs. They were used for the same purposes and back then dogs belonged to general types rather than genetically isolated breeds (opposed to what happens today). Today’s Alanos are a re-created breed, and they actually have a good dose of Boxer in them.
do you think,boxer have show bulldog blood?(via dr niessien tom),or dr bulldog was an old type bulldog?
Not really. If you look at the boxers from those early days, they look more like the current type of English bulldogs than like bullenbeissers.
So our boxer has some pug blood via show bulldog.i wonder if bullmastiff and mastiff have even pug blood.(for bullmastiff which type of bulldog mr moseley used? And mastiff was reconstructed by using bullmastiff blood.