How to Keep Your Boxer – or any Dog – Healthy…

Learning to care for a dog teaches a young person to be responsible, take pride in ownership, make decisions and learn about their animal’s behavior and needs. In this article, we identify ways to keep your Boxer healthy, or for that matter any dog healthy!

• Feed him a balanced diet.
• Give an occasional yogurt treat
• Ask your vet about giving Boxers calcium tablets as they could have some problems later on in life!
• Keep him comfortable so his immune system can remain strong.
• Boxers are shorthaired and sensitive to extreme elements of the weather and thus must be kept a housedog. His shortened muzzle also makes hot and humid weather uncomfortable for him.
• Give Boxers lots of exercise regularly.
• Remember that he is a big and strong breed and requires physical outlets for his boundless energy and high play/prey drive.
• Walk them three times a day or have play sessions. Provide plenty of space for them to bounce around. You want to keep their spirit up and not break it or they won´t be the dogs you fall in love within the first place. When you keep your Boxer healthy and happy, he is a joy to live with.
• Make a breeder your friend.
• Keep in touch with the breeder who sold you the Boxer. The breeder can advise you about care and health matters that are unique to the breed. Any Boxer breeder, for that matter, can be an invaluable ally to you throughout your Boxer’s life.

Keep your Boxer healthy: Guard him against fleas.

• Your Boxer has fleas if you find black specks in the fur or flea bite marks on the skin. A tip given by an owner is to give your Boxer garlic daily to prevent fleas.
• Boxers catch fleas from other animals. It is an everyday problem that, at some time or another, you can expect to encounter in your Boxer.
• The fleas only go to the Boxer to feed on its blood. This will stop you from keeping your boxer healthy!
• Fleas mostly live and multiply in your home. The comfortable living – central heating, double-glazing and, best of all, the fitted carpet – we create for ourselves and our Boxers also work best for the fleas.

De-worm your puppy every month and your adult Boxer, every six months.

• Worms are another everyday problem in Boxers but the puppy is more likely to get sick from worms than the grown-up Boxer.
• The sick one would lose weight and become weak, suffer from upset stomach, poor growth, listlessness, or even lung trouble.
• They may impede your puppy´s growth and cause him to have a potbelly or be thin and have a shoddy-looking coat.
• Your grown Boxer may not be showing any sign of worms but he could spread them more than the sick puppy, through a large number of larvae or eggs passed out in the feces.
• If your Boxer has tapeworms, he has fleas too because part of the tapeworm life cycle occurs in flea as the host. As such, treatments against flea and tapeworm are normally prescribed together.
• Some, like the roundworm, that infect dogs can also get passed on to children. This is an important reason to keep your boxer healthy.
• In more serious cases, your dog will catch cough, pneumonia and develop lung problems.
• There are different types of worms that infect dogs such as tapeworm, roundworm, ringworm, and heartworm. De-worm your Boxer puppy every month and your grown Boxer, every 6 months.

Tapeworms and Roundworms

• The tapeworms have a flat, segmented body. You see them as single segments or chains that resemble segments of rice in the droppings of infected canines.
• Part of the tapeworm´s life cycle occurs in the flea as the host. Therefore, if your Boxer has tapeworms, it has fleas too and the treatments for both are usually prescribed together by the vet.
• The roundworms (Toxocara) live and produce hundreds of eggs in the intestine.
• They cause digestive upset in puppies, poor growth, and thin or out-of-conditioned coat.
• The infected puppies may become listless, have a potbelly or tucked-in appearance.
• Once the roundworms migrated from the gut to the lungs, your Boxer can suffer lung damage, cough, and pneumonia.
• The roundworm eggs in the dog droppings get passed out and about.
• These are very hardy eggs, resistant to heat and cold, and can survive up to 7 years in the soil. The eggs can pass on to children through ingestion and cause them to fall sick as well.

As precautions, you can toilet train your Boxer puppy to use a place where you can easily clean up and dispose of the droppings into the sewer. Have your children wash their hands every time after they handle the puppies and discourage your puppies from licking people’s hands or faces. Keeping your Boxer healthy is an everyday task and it is just like looking after a child!