Never leave a Boxer home alone with a Christmas tree. By day four of having one up, we are usually missing most of the shiny ball ornaments. The dogs enjoy popping them like balloons and somehow have never once cut their lips.

Kiss your spacious bed goodbye. If we own one more Boxer, we will be sleeping on the floor.

Don't sweat the small stuff - like ornamental candles left on the coffee table which you arrive home to find shredded into white wax fluff on the carpet. My coffee table is like the Sahara now, a barren wasteland where nothing except the remote is safe, and only because Murphy has outgrown his tenderness for metal objects. When they say puppy-proof your home, they mean it - especially electrical cords and anything small enough to swallow. Murphy had a thing for the milk in the baby's bottles and would bite the tops off to get it. Take it from me, a $1700 vet bill to remove a Gerber nipple from your adolescent Boxer's intestine is not something you will want to repeat.

Prepare to receive a lot of attention - every time we take our dogs out, people stop us to pet them or find out where we purchased them. Once, at the local park, they were even asked to pose for a picture.

Get ready to laugh...alot! This breed can best be described as the Peter Pans & clowns of the dog world. In fact, they usually mature around 3-4 years of age. You will find that this is more true for some dogs than others. Murphy can usually be trusted at home alone, but our female, Daisy, is still a troublemaker, and they are very close in age.

Boxers are stubborn and freakishly smart. The combination of the two makes for an interesting mix. You will find that this is particularly so when teaching obedience. A lab will repeat a trick as many times as his/her owner requests, but a Boxer is thinking "Didn't I already just do that?". You have to work harder to keep the training exercises interesting and fun for a Boxer. And it helps to have lots of good treats.

However, they are constantly thinking up ways to communicate with you - Murphy kicks his food bowl around the kitchen like a hockey puck when he wants to be fed, and Daisy watched him - now she does it too. Also, Daisy learned how to spring open the kitchen trash by setting her chin on the button that opens it. And of course the both of them are masters at sneaking - if you're watching TV and not paying them attention, they will sit at your feet and place one paw on your knee. If this is accepted, they will add the other front paw. Minutes later and achingly slowly, they will have crept onto your lap with barely any weight on their hindlegs at all. They're 70 pound lapdogs.