What made you choose the boxer?

When my ex & I got married and bought our house, we decided to start getting pets...He wanted a dog, a good sized one, but nothing mean or nothing...He had a Pit Bull for years and that was the biggest baby you had ever seen....Our house had a pool and we decided we needed a short haired dog to keep filter maintenence down, so I started researching... Neither of us really didn't want a lab, not sure why, kinda thought about a Golden, but nixed that thought, so I was reading the paper one day and came across some things about Boxers..So off I go to the pet store to get books, they happened to have a boxer pup there(yup I didn't know a thing about puppy mills back then), so the clerk let me play with this little guy for an hour and I was hooked!!! No, we didn't buy him, something told me it just wasn't right and the fact that they wanted $900 for him and this was 9 yrs ago!!! Started to make calls, checking ads, phone boof, you name it and we finally ended up with Visions of Timbuktu, aka Buck....The next year we rescued a little fawn female as a friend for him named Tia Maria and it's been boxers ever since....

When I was a kid my dad found a boxer that had been hit by a car.  We couldnt keep him because my mom is alergic to everything.  So my neighbors kept him and he was the greatest dog ever.  His owner would pretend to hit me or my siblings and Rocky would growl at him.  I used to ride him like a horse.  

I'm the kid in the middle... with Rocky, with my aunt and one of rockys owners!

it took us a while to commit to a dog; the hubby wanted one really bad and i held out.  we have a spoiled rotten cat that is 14 and i just didn't know what it would do to him if we introduced a dog into the mix.  he really wanted a boxer b/c as a kid someone down the street from him had one and he loved it.  so, we moved to a bigger place last year and the discussion kept coming up and i finally told him to start looking at shelters.  i honestly thought there was no way he'd find a boxer at a shelter--boy was i wrong!!  in DC we have quite a few shelters and i think he found 3 boxers total before finding Madeline but all already had applications on them by the time we got there.  so, once he found mad, he brought me back to interact with her and i just fell in love.  once that happened i think i picked up the torch even more than hi!!  i was the one fretting over having not heard whether we'd been approved for her, worrying if she'd like us, etc.

so now it's been 2 months and i couldn't be happier!!!  they truly are a wonderful breed.  and the cat doesn't like her much bnut we're making progress...  

I had a black lab named Jazz.  This dog was one that I would say went through "everything" with me.  She was a parvo puppy at a clinic that I worked at while still in college. The owners could no longer afford the treatment and opted to have her put to sleep.  I asked if I took over her payments and treatment if they would agree to sign ownership over to me. They agreed and she became "my dog" she was there through school, moving to three different states, through several boyfriends and then meeting my husband, she was there through the marriage and joining of households, she was there for the birth of my daughter and then she finally left this life at the rip old age of 15.  I went "dogless" for about 10 months. Which is generally unheard of given my profession.  I felt at that time that there would never be another as great as she was!

Then we were ready for another....I had to consider my daughter, I wanted a short haired dog, one that did not need to be groomed.  I am a big dog person, and I was not ready for another lab. I realized that when it comes to the perfect one that I would want as part of my family there are few breeds I would even consider.  What topped the list was a Greyhound and a Boxer.   I spent some time with the Greyhound rescue here in my area and then decided that I wanted to get a younger dog.  I set my goal on a female boxer around 10 to 14 weeks and I waited.  It took a while because most were already sold or had deposits on them by 6 weeks and not many breeders still had pups at 12-14 weeks of age. I finally found Fiona and she was perfect! Now.....my husband and I are considering another lab in the future, but I can not see my home without a boxer in it too!

After my bf and I bought our house we started talking about getting a dog.  I've always had dogs growing up and my sheltie passed away in May of '06.  We started researching, he wanted a big tough looking dog and I wanted a little dog.  We looked at pits, bulldogs, etc.  Then we started all the work on the house and didn't have a fenced in yard, so I stopped searching and said we should wait.  Unknown to me, my bf was still on the prowl.  He started looking at boxers and would email me pictures..."they're cute" is all I would say.  Then this past March my bf said he had a surprise for my birthday.  Tortured me for weeks.  The day finally came and he said we have to go be at the airport on Sunday night by 11pm.  I thought WAHOO we're going on vacation!!!!!  So we drive in.....start heading over to the cargo area and I just knew!  45 minutes later a white van is pulling up....the back doors open and there's tiny, white 8 pound bundle of fur looking at us from her crate.  I instantly fell in love!  I later found out that even though I said we shouldn't get a dog, my bf decided to get one anyway because my grandmother passed away in December '06, the hardest thing I've ever done was saying goodbye to her and he thought that a puppy would help take some of the pain away.  I also later found out that he didn't do much research on boxers.  He thought he was getting a tough dog that likes to play, but can occupy itself! Ha!  He now is the proud owner of a big cuddle bug, that loves to be with you and entertained 24/7!  But he loves her to pieces...we both do!  
Thanks everyone for sharing your great stories!