Breeder vs. Pet Store
Credit and shipping
Boxers & Children
Payment Options
Black Boxers?
Guard Dogs?
Pit Boxers?
White Boxers?
What Vet do you Recommend?
Why should I buy a Boxer pup from you when I can buy one at the pet store?
The choice is ultimately up to you. I've had good experiences and bad experiences with both - breeders and pet stores. Our 8-year-old Pomeranian was purchased at a pet store and has rarely had a sick day in his life. On the flipside, I've purchased dogs from breeders which came home with horrible temperaments, a result of either poor environmental conditions or bad breeding. Also, I paid more for a puppy from a pet store than when I could actually visit the premises and see the parents - does that make sense? I suppose it's like going to Safeway or going to 7-11 - You pay for the convenience of walking in and walking out with a puppy ($700 worth of convenience often). No one checks your references, no one questions you. I can't think of any breeders who would purposefully sell to a pet shop. Who would want their pups to live in those wire-floored cages? 9 times out of 10, those babies came from a puppy mill. But wait, you say, there can't be any puppy mills in Colorado! Unfortunately there are, and they advertise online. Out-of-state puppy mills regularly ship to our pet stores as well. The mills churn out those cute little puppies for roughly $200 a pop, eye infections & respiratory infections included.
However, when you buy directly from a breeder, you hopefully have premises you can inspect for cleanliness, the pup's parents on site and a person you can feel comfortable with, one that you know will be happy on a Saturday afternoon to provide helpful suggestions and one whom you know actually cares for the animals they have helped bring into the world. We feel that we are able to provide this type of service to our new puppy owners. Our breeder mentor has 15 years experience in the business.
Our pups have become members of our family too. We want to hear from you following your purchase. Please send us pics and letters about your new companion and we'll post them on our site.
Why don't you accept credit card or ship your puppies out of state?
We feel that our pups deserve homes which are able to afford the care all animals deserve. Prospective owners can better demonstrate this ability by purchasing their pup with real money, not credit. The purchase of a puppy should not be spur of the moment. These pups will live an average of 10 years, and many live to be 15. There are other breeders who may accept credit, but unfortunately most do not.
Shipping out of state is not available at this time. Not only are the pups extremely vulnerable to disease before their 16-week vaccinations, aircraft holds are often drafty, dirty places. No one would place their child in a cage and shove them under the plane, but that is what air shipping is for dogs. We want your new puppy to reach your home in the best physical and emotional condition possible.
Are Boxers OK with small children?
Boxers make awesome family pets. Of all the breeds we have owned, including Golden Retriever, we consider them the most kid-friendly, and we're not just saying that because we have puppies that need good homes. Our Boxers are trusted completely with our children, even when our 2-year-old acted like a 2-year-old (attempting to ride the dogs, sit on the dogs, etc). Absolutely, given your new puppy has been taught from day one that you are the master and young children are taught that the puppy is not a toy, a Boxer will make a wonderful child's companion. As with any dog, you will need to learn some basics about dog psychology. We highly recommend obedience training as it helps you communicate properly with the dog to obtain the behavior you want. But personally, we have seen amazing results just by following the commands we learned by viewing the Dog Whisperer (a program on the National Geographic channel). The host is Cesar Milan, a nationally renowned trainer. Many libraries will lend his DVD's for free. Murphy underwent obedience training and learned many valuable commands, but until we used the methods learned from Cesar, I was unable to walk him or feel 100% in control of him. Boxers are not naturally aggressive with the right training, but are heavy enough to get their way on a leash if you're not considered the Alpha in their eyes.
What forms of payment do you accept?
We accept cash, check/cashier's check (transfer of puppy only after check clears the bank) and money order (transfer of puppy only after money order cashed).
Do you ever have black Boxers for sale?
Unfortunately there are many breeders advertising their "rare black Boxers" for sale. Genetically, it is impossible for true Boxers to produce a black puppy. A puppy can be so darkly brindled that it almost appears black in certain lights, but even a darkly brindled puppy will still have some of the fawn coloring between dark stripes. FYI - Flashy fawn Boxers do not have the brindling gene. The only way to introduce the gene for pure black coloring is to introduce another breed into the mix (pit bull, etc). Breeders who do so are able to maintain registrations for the puppies because AKC and many other registries are not able to DNA test randomly on a regular basis - there are just too many breeders to keep up with. For example, a breeder may have a pair of Boxers and a black pit bull. They produce a litter and send in their litter registration form for a litter from the Boxer parents. Also, because canines are able to produce one litter from multiple mates, there very well may be pure Boxers and Pit-Boxer hybrids in the same litter. Who is checking that the pups are, in actuality, purebred Boxers? No one. It's the breeder's word, and it's why potential puppy owners need to interview breeders as much as breeders need to interview them.
We're looking for a guard dog for our backyard...
Boxers may look ferocious to non-Boxer owners, but it turns out they are generally not suited to situations where they will be intended to chew people up, though they will if not socialized properly. Last year there was a case where two Boxers running at large tore up a grandmother tending her garden. News crews tracked down the owner and filmed his backyard. He had a doghouse in the middle and dirt surrounding that - no toys, no stimulation for the dogs at all. It's likely the only socialization the dogs received was when their owner stepped outside to fill their food bowls.
Boxers were originally utilized as working dogs in Germany - they are "hearing guard dogs", meaning the German soldiers used to them to detect the presence of troops long before they could be seen, particularly snipers, but they were rarely used to actually attack the person once found. In fact, to this day, Boxers training in protection or police work can easily complete every task required but find more difficulty when it comes to lunging at their trainer's gloved arm. Such is not the case with German Shepherds, Malinois, or Doberman Pinschers. Anyone who contacts us requesting an aggressive dog will not be invited to visit our Boxers. Our dogs are aggressive when they need to be and teddy bears when they're not.
We're looking for a Boxer with a big head and thick body, sort of like a pit bull...
You have come to the wrong place - we breed Boxers that look and act like Boxers, not Pit Bulls. If you do some research online, we are sure you will find other breeders in the region whose dogs more closely resemble Pit Bulls. Red Maximus Boxers shoots for breed standard, males will be under 70 pounds - see our Breed Info page for details.
Are white boxers healthy?
White Boxers are as healthy as their "colored" counterparts except for the higher incidence of deafness. Research has shown that 11-18% of pure white Boxers are deaf in one or both ears. The following article (White Boxers) gives many great details, with one caveat - they advise that Rescue groups say the percentage of deafness in whites is 40%. I would argue that there is a higher rate of white boxers who are deaf being removed from the home than there would be with a non-deaf white Boxer, but 40% of whites are not deaf. Of course shelters and rescue groups see more deaf whites than non-deaf whites - these special needs dogs require special people who are willing to learn new methods to train their dog. Trying to train a deaf puppy will understandably be unsuccessful with traditional verbal praise methods. There are specialized group dog training courses just for owners of non-hearing dogs.
Buyers of our white pups will not be given the puppy's registration papers until the pup is spayed/neutered. We do not want them to accidentally breed a litter of what would most likely be non-hearing pups. It's just not a good thing to breed white Boxers - any white pups can have deafness, but puppies which are bred from a white Boxer can carry an increased percentage of deafness. This means that even the colored pups from a white Boxer's litter may be non-hearing, and leads to increasing the risk of deafness for colored Boxers everywhere.
For a great site with more facts and many myths busted about non-hearing dogs, visit: DeafDogs.org
What Vet do you Recommend?We recommend
Gillett Veterinary Clinic on 120th in Westminster, Colorado. Dr. Gillett is as personable and knowledgeable as anyone could ask for, and the office is bright, cheery and comfortable. Dr. Gillett has done a fine job so far with all of our pups, and we hope that new puppy owners who either don't currently have a family veterinarian, or those who may have had bad experiences with their own vets, will contact Dr. Gillett. You won't find a better pet doctor out there.
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