And You Thought You Knew it All!

Nearly 5 years ago, I picked a gorgeous, fiesty, wiggly flashy fawn boxer from a litter and then went home to attempt to hide from my now husband, the fact that I had already claimed her as mine.  Frankly, I'm a horrifically horrible liar, so I don't believe for a minute that when I said that I had "just looked" that my husband was in the dark about my little white lie, but he gets a lot of credit for making me think that he believed me; one of many reasons why I love my darling husband so much!  Little did I know at the time that I brought her home, the lessons she would teach me.  And I wasn't thinking of all the schooling that her brother, Duke would do on me either when I signed on the dotted line a year later.

But, the other day, as I reflected on how much I have grown in the last 5 years, I couldn't help but realize that my 2 boxers have taught me a lot of very important lessons.  Now, don't get me wrong, I'm not saying that another breed can't teach their parents important life lessons.  They can, but for me, becoming a boxer parent was a perfect fit, they are the perfect breed for my temperament, lifestyle and personality and because of this perfect fit, I can surmise that I have been more open to the lessons that they have to teach me.  This could probably be about 10 different blog posts...

1.  Responsibility:  I never considered myself an irresponsible person, but caring for another living, breathing creature, will make you grow up very quickly and become even more responsible (especially an energetic, wild boxer puppy). Making sure that Lucy and Duke had everything they needed to live a long, happy, healthy life quickly became one of my top priorities.  This was not without it's rewards.  I learned very quickly that the happier my boxers were, the happier they made me.  I can never remember a time when I have thought to myself that taking care of them was a chore, they rely on me, and they depend on me, and they always reward me for taking care of them!

2.  It's okay to get a little mud on the tires, or drool on the windows,  It's nearly impossible to share a home with 2 boxers and not have a little drool on the windows, walls, floors, and every article of clothing that they come in contact with.  I remember my mother commenting shortly after we adopted Lucy that she couldn't believe that I was laughing over Lucy spraying drool all over my newly painted wall.  Everything does not always have to be perfect... and no, my windows that Lucy and Duke can reach, are never clean, because frankly, they seem to get a lot of pleasure out of licking windows, and boxer drool isn't easy to remove.  My two boxer children adore dirt, and yes, sometimes they decide to bring it in the house with them.  But, that's okay, for the joy of my children, these are things that I can accept, and things that I can brush off with a giggle.

3.  Sometimes in life, you're going to get the wind knocked out of you.  But, you have to get back up, shake it off (or wiggle it off, in this case) and get back to business.  Lucy was a wee tiny thing the day that she took a flying leap off of the deck and took 5 years off of her mothers life.  I went running, and found Lucy on all 4 paws, shaking it and wiggling it off.  I swear, she probably thought that was fun, although she never did it again, so maybe not.  And I can't tell you how many times Duke has hit his head on the sliding glass door because he thought it was open.  Boom!  Smack!  He jumps right up, shakes it off and keeps on trucking.  I swear these incidents are much more traumatic for me than they are for my children.  This was something that I became very good at over the last year.  I had a lot of bad days, and a lot of bad news in a very short period of time.  I couldn't believe how good I had gotten at brushing it off and moving on... although, I don't wiggle nearly as much as my boxer children do (or at least I don't think I do).

4.  Laughter is good, laughter is really good.  It's okay to be silly and laugh at yourself!  And it is most certainly okay to make other people laugh, actually, it's kind of fun!  This was a hard lesson for me to learn, thankfully, boxers are pretty relentless when it comes to their efforts to make people laugh.  Lucy & Duke have had their work cut out for them, but I can honestly say that they have done an excellent job with me on this one.  I don't take myself nearly as seriously as I did prior to being trained by my boxers.   It took about 4 years for my children to teach me this lesson and make sure that I had it down pat.  I think that they would both say that I could be an honorary boxer... And as all of my loyal readers can probably attest to, this last year was a certainly a test of my new found, boxer induced sense of humor.  As I have said so many times, I honestly believe that my sense of humor was kept me afloat over the last year, and I really have my boxers to thank for whipping it into such great shape.   Thanks to these two clowns, I have mastered the art of giggling on a regular basis.

5.  Most importantly, when you love, love with your whole darn heart.  When you love, love without judgement.  When you love, love every single day, even the bad days.  Always, forgive quickly, and forget about it.  Show your love in every single way that your little heart can dream up.  My boxer children don't care when I'm grumpy; they still love me.  My boxer children don't care when I work my tail off and don't do everything they want to do; they still love me.  My boxer children don't care when I forget to reorder their marrow bones, okay, they do care, but only for a few minutes.

These two boxers have taught me so much about life and love it's honestly incredible.  I seriously never thought I could be so in love with an animal, but these furry, soft, wiggly, silly little goof balls, have a very special place in my heart.  Not only for all of the things that they've taught me that I may not have learned otherwise so early on in life, but for all of the joy that they bring on a an everyday basis.  There is nothing that cannot be made to seem less traumatic by a boxer kiss, or a boxer wiggle.