Roxy

Roxy, our latest, is a 10-12 month old flashy fawn female.  She is beautiful, smart, and eager to learn and please.  She also thinks that she is the queen bee around here.  She prances around with her perfect exaggerated boxer gait like a champion in a show ring.

 This lovely lady comes to us by way of an independent rescuer in a little town to the north of us.  She is a child of a divorce.  She is healthy and in great physical condition so she was obviously well cared for yet neither person wanted her.  She was dumped off to a lady who is known to take in animals no matter what.  Her intentions are good, but the environment is not (think hoarder).  She has 30 dogs that she tries to keep up with.  Roxy is in heat and would have quickly become pregnant if not removed from that place. 

She is extremely people social and doesn't meet a stranger, as a boxer should be.  However her dog social skills, although improving, are lackluster.  She is by no means dog aggressive, but rather indifferent at first.  She had no idea how to play nicely and anytime she got excited, her attempt turned to mounting and attacking.  We are working with her and although she still prefers the company of people, we encourage (supervised!) play sessions daily.  She has been spotted cuddled up to each of her foster siblings a time or two, although she would never admit it;-)

She also has fairly severe separation anxiety.  Her world was turned upside down and this behavior is often the result.  I'm thinking she was a bed sleeper in her former home because no matter how tired she is, crated or not, she cries and whines for hours some nights being away from us.  I have never had a dog that after a week, wouldn't just rest calmly with the other dogs at night.  She has damaged two crates already.  She comes to work with me every day at this point because she isn't ready for extended crating yet and I don't know what she would do to the house if I left her out.  She will climb or tear down any gate.

Despite her little issues, she has us totally captivated.  She entertains us daily with her unusual favorite activity.  Boxers are not typically swimmers.  Their cropped tails, short hair and dense bodies don't tend to be very buoyant.  More than once, I have seen the myth "all dogs can swim"  disproven.  Whenever we get a new dog that we feel is curious or clumsy enough to fall in the pool, we A) make sure they can actually swim and B) teach them how to get to the stairs to get out should they happen to take a plunge.  One lesson is usually all it takes to ensure that they steer clear.  The experience is apparently so repulsive that never has a dog fallen in twice.  Maybe swimming is instinctual for a retriever, but as for little Roxy, well she just sunk.  The difference between her and every other foster we have had is that she was undeterred.  If we were in the pool, she wanted to be in the pool.  She had no fear and no swimming skills...not a good combination.  It was a fatal disaster waiting to happen. We worked with her, literally teaching her to move her legs and stay afloat.  She eventually started to paddle on her own, looking like a cat flailing around aimlessly.  But over the week, she got more and more graceful in the water.  Now she seems to think she is a Labrador.  She plunges into the water over and over again.  The day Roxy fell in the water changed her life. 

 

 

 

Because she is in heat, she has not been spayed, therefore has not been listed yet.  I think that because of her picture perfect looks, she will attract a lot of attention and get applications quickly once she is.