Boxer Dog Trivia
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50 free Boxer Dog trivia questions with answers — nature quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
This Boxer trivia quiz covers the German mastiff-type from the boar-hunting Bullenbeisser to the family sofa. History questions trace the Brabanter Bullenbeisser and imported Bulldogs, George Alt's Munich matings that produced Lechner's Box and Mühlbauer's Flocki, the 1895 Deutscher Boxer Club, the 1896 St Bernard show where Boxers first appeared, Meta von der Passage as 'mother of the breed', the 1904 standard and the AKC's first champion Dampf vom Dom. The breed section covers the 1:3 muzzle ratio and undershot jaw, fawn and brindle, 'flash' markings, why black Boxers do not exist, the 20–25% of pups born white and their deafness risk, docking and cropping rules across kennel clubs, temperament, Coren's ranking and the health picture from Boxer cardiomyopathy to mast cell tumours and juvenile kidney disease. There is a full set on where the name 'Boxer' really came from, plus Dickin Medal heroes Punch and Judy and Dickens's Boxer in The Cricket on the Hearth. Questions run from easy to expert with a difficulty score on each, so it suits a family quiz or a devoted Boxer owner. Every answer was checked against Wikipedia and breed references and each question carries its citation. Also try our Dogs and Bulldog quizzes.
30 of 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Its courage and intelligence have long made the Boxer a recognised breed for which job?
Police work
Police work: the Boxer is an officially recognised service-dog breed in its homeland, and armies used it as a messenger and pack carrier in both world wars.
Q 02Which old hunting breed is the Boxer's main ancestor?
Bullenbeisser
Bullenbeisser means 'bull biter'. When the great estates broke up and their hunts ended, the big hunter lost its job and was bred down into the lighter Boxer.
Q 03The Boxer's extinct ancestor was used for centuries to hunt which animals?
Bear, wild boar and deer
Bear, wild boar and deer: the dog had to seize the quarry and hold it until the hunters came up, which is why breeders prized the widest possible jaws.
Q 04In which city was the first Boxer club founded in 1895?
Munich
Munich: three fanciers there set out to fix the breed's type, put Boxers on show to win it a following, and founded the club in the same campaign.
Q 05Boxers made their show debut in the 1890s at an event held for which other breed?
St. Bernards
St. Bernards: the St. Bernard club agreed to add a trial class for Boxers. Just one dog was entered, its owner talked into it, and it won and became No. 1 in the stud book.
Q 06How did the first Boxer breeders fix the new breed's type within a few generations?
Close inbreeding
Close inbreeding: the foundation sire, Box, was mated back to his own mother, and the breed's founding female descends from that litter.
Q 07Flocki, the first dog in the Boxer stud book, was sired by a dog of which other breed?
Bulldog
Bulldog: the same dog, Tom, was mated to Flocki's mother a second time, and through that later litter he stands behind almost every Boxer pedigree since.
Q 08Flora, the brindle female at the root of the first Boxer pedigrees, came to Germany from which neighbouring country?
France
France: the imported Flora was bred to a local dog, and their fawn-and-white son, Lechner's Box, became the grandsire of the first dog entered in the Boxer stud book.
Q 09Which broad family of dogs does the Boxer belong to?
Mastiffs
Mastiffs: breed histories trace the type to the powerful war dogs of the ancient world, and the world canine federation still files the Boxer with its mastiff-type breeds.
Q 10The Boxer Bang Away won Best in Show at which event in 1951?
Westminster
Westminster: Bang Away's win was the third there for a Boxer in five years, and the AKC dates the breed's American heyday from his celebrity.
Q 11What made the Boxer suddenly popular abroad?
Returning soldiers
Returning soldiers: the Second World War had put Boxers to work beside the troops, and the servicemen who met them there created instant demand for the breed.
Q 12Which part of the Boxer gives the breed its 'unique individual stamp', in the words of its standard?
Head
Head: its broad, blunt muzzle, the legacy of a catch dog bred for the widest jaws, is a third of the head's length and must balance the skull.
Q 13Which kind of bite does the Boxer's breed standard call for?
Undershot bite
Undershot bite: the lower jaw juts beyond the upper, and the thick upper lip pads out the space, propped on the lower canines.
Q 21At what age is a Boxer's tail typically docked where the practice is still allowed?
3–5 days
3–5 days: puppies are docked that young without anaesthetic, and pressure from vets has since seen docking banned in a number of countries.
Q 22The AKC's 2005 Boxer standard accepted the natural ear but said which feature 'should be severely penalized'?
An undocked tail
An undocked tail: across Europe the rule runs the other way, since the international standard says the tail is of normal length and left natural.
Q 23In Stanley Coren's The Intelligence of Dogs, how is the Boxer's obedience intelligence rated?
Average
Average: Coren's poll of obedience judges put the breed 48th, and the Boxer club's columnist shot back that no dog trusted to carry messages behind enemy lines is 48th at anything.
Q 14Breed histories trace the Boxer's type to war dogs kept some 4,000 years ago by which people?
The Assyrians
The Assyrians bred powerful, fearless dogs for battle, and their descendants spread across Europe to become the hunting dogs of medieval Germany.
Q 15Boxers with white markings on the neck or face are known as what?
Flashy
Flashy: the white trim is called flash, and because a flashy dog carries one copy of the white-spotting gene, two flashy parents can have all-white puppies.
Q 16Why are there no purebred black Boxers?
The breed lacks the gene
The breed lacks the gene: dogs sold as black are brindles striped so heavily that the fawn barely shows, a sales pitch the American Boxer Club condemns.
Q 17Under American Kennel Club rules, which activity are white Boxers barred from?
The show ring
The show ring: the standard disqualifies any Boxer more than one-third white, yet the breed's own club rates white dogs the equal of any other in obedience, agility and therapy work.
Q 18The gene behind the white Boxer's coat is linked to which inherited condition?
Deafness
Deafness: the gene leaves the inner ear without the pigment cells it needs, so a white Boxer may be deaf in one ear or both.
Q 19Where do the AKC and the Boxer's own breed club both say the dog should be kept?
Inside the house
Inside the house: both bodies warn that the Boxer has little tolerance for extremes of heat or cold, so a life spent outdoors is ruled out.
Q 20To get Boxers born short-tailed, a British geneticist crossed in which breed?
Pembroke Welsh Corgi
Pembroke Welsh Corgi: Bruce Cattanach made the cross in 1992, expecting a ban on docking, then bred back to Boxers until the Kennel Club registered the line.
Q 24Boxers have a reputation for being what, a trait often blamed on the wrong kind of training?
Headstrong
Headstrong: harsh, correction-based drilling tends to backfire with Boxers, which respond far better to rewards such as clicker training that let them work a problem out.
Q 25Seen from the side, the ideal Boxer's body should fit which shape?
A square
A square: the length from chest to rump should equal the height at the shoulder, a compact build meant to combine strength with agility.
Q 26Boxers are among the breeds most prone to degenerative myelopathy, a disease likened to ALS that attacks what?
The spinal cord
The spinal cord: it usually starts after the age of seven with weak, wobbly hind legs and ends in paralysis, and it is tied to a mutation in SOD1, a gene also linked to ALS in people.
Q 27Arrhythmogenic right ventricular disease is so typical of Boxers that it is nicknamed what?
Boxer cardiomyopathy
Boxer cardiomyopathy sets off erratic heartbeats that can make an apparently healthy adult faint or die suddenly, and it mirrors a human heart disease so closely that the breed is studied as a model for it.
Q 28What was the leading cause of death among Boxers in a UK Kennel Club health survey?
Cancer
Cancer: it caused 38.5% of the deaths reported, nearly twice as many as old age, and Boxers in the survey died about a year younger than dogs overall.
Q 29Slow-healing sores that vets call 'Boxer ulcers' form on which part of the dog?
The eye
The eye: the ulcer sits on the clear front surface, where the top layer fails to stick to the tissue beneath, so it heals slowly until a vet clears the loose layer away.
Q 30In a Dutch study, about what share of Boxer puppies died before seven weeks?
20%
20%: of more than 2,600 puppies followed, 22% were dead before weaning, and infection took more of them as litters grew more closely related.