Boxer as service animal

[DominosLily]

Aloha Everyone!

We pick up our first boxer next week and picked the puppy and breed with the intent of training her to be our replacement service animal as we will be retiring our current one.

From the moment she receives her last vaccine she will be a "working dog" and around a lot of kids (thus the boxer breed) and my goal is to train her well enough so that any child can be her "handler" as she will be primarily for my 5 year old daughter.

Has anyone ever had experience with. Boxer being any type of service animal or Theropy dog?

I'm hoping the intelligence, energy level, and love of people make for a good choice.

Thanks




Domino

[2manydogs]

I have two clients who have their boxers as certified therapy dogs. This breed loves people and being given a job. I would make sure you thoroughly screen the parents, make sure they are completely health tested and perhaps look for a breeder that does temperament testing so you can be paired with a boxer puppy that best suits your needs.

[DominosLily]

Thanks 2manydogs! that made me feel so good as I did that! The breeder was AMAZING in helping me pick out the puppy with the perfect temperament. The parents and lineage are AKC and come from a great pedigree.

Lily is a beautiful dog and at day 49 (when they say you can best tell lasting temperament) she was an IDEAL candidate to be our next service animal. The breeder has kept me upto date with the entire litter and from the begining Lily stood out as expecially interested in people but with a mild energy. When the girls and I went to go visit-she was interested but never jumped up onto the kids and aced the Volhard puppy test.

I love dogs- I've worked around a lot of them- but this will be my first boxer experience EVER! So Im excited to see how it all works out.

[Tracilee014]

I have an adult dog who alerts on me when my Prinzmetal Angina acts up though he wasn't ever trained or certified. Now one of his offspring has begun taking que and doing the same. So while I can't speak directly at having a boxer as an official certified therapy or alert dog, we are looking into this for my younger pup. I personally think the temperament of the boxer combined with their desire to be close to ppl would make for an excellent therapy dog. Good luck to you and your child. I hope you have many years to share all the wondrous things that are boxer!

[DominosLily]

Thank you Tracilee! That is so reassuring! That was my thought when I was looking into a breed- in fact, I don't know why more people DONT use Boxers as service animals... If you need any information on registering your pup- let me know and I'll share with you the info I found helpful.

Thanks for the happy vibes!