The Beginning | Early days | The Foundation | Present day
Before our involvement with show boxers I bought a Boxer dog puppy (before Jean and I were married). It was early 1961 and I had just been drafted to HMS Ark Royal, (hence the prefix). I saw an advertisement in the Western Evening Herald for Boxer puppies and I made enquiries. I bought a dog puppy and had to pick him up from Plymouth North road railway station. He came in a tea chest. Obviously I couldn't keep him on board the ship and fortunately for me, my best pal lived in married quarters and he went to live with them. I visited him on evenings and weekends; sadly my friends family were frequently visited by friends who had a puppy and even though my puppy had had all his injections, he caught distemper and died.
A few years later when I left the Navy, I wanted a Boxer, but bringing up our family took priority over purchasing a Boxer pup with our limited financial resources. In the late sixties Jean was asked to go to Manchester dogs home with a friend from work. The friend wanted a German Shepherd dog and Jean went along for the ride. When they got back Jean came in excited "they have got a boxer at the dogs home Tony" and had made enquiries with the staff and was told he had just come in and if no one claimed him over the next few days he would be available...
We rang a few days later and arranged to bring him home for the princely sum of £4. We called him Butch and he was a lovely family pet. His only problem was that if you were not over diligent when you opened the front door, he would be off like a shot, re-appearing later as if butter would not melt in his mouth. We then realised that was probably how he came to be in the dogs home, needless to say that his escapes were kept to an absolute minimum.
