The first contact one of the partners of Kanabec Boxers had with a boxer was in 1956
 when her family adopted a 2 year old purebred Boxer.
Her name was Princesse.
For a 5 year old kid, this dog was huge, especially that it was a German type Boxer,
but it was love at first sight.
Princesse adopted the kid and became part of all her games.
The parents had to make sure that, at the end of the day of school, Princesse was locked up
otherwise she was waiting for the kid at the school door or at the corner of the street.

Princesse                                                           Princesse and some of her puppies

A few years later, Princesse gave birth to a litter of puppies out of which only a male and a female survived..
There was no intention for the family to keep a second Boxer, especially that there was already two dogs in the home.
After many supplications and tricks done to keep the female puppy,
one partner of Kanabec Boxers finally got her own boxer at 8 years old.
and named her Tammy.

Wherever the kid was going you could be sure that there were 2 boxers following.

After the loss of the two Boxers and a grieving period,
Rocky was brought to our family because the person who had him did not want him anymore.
Rocky had the bad habit to empty the bar of his owner during his absence.
The loss of our last Boxer was still too fresh in our mind, but we rescued him anyway.
It did not take long for Rocky to win the heart of the whole family, as only Boxers can do.
He loved the kids so much that he was always checking on the kids of our neighbors.
Whenever thinking of Rocky, the following memory always comes back.

One day, one of the 4 year old twins from a second door neighbor who use to play in the yard with Rocky
was hit by a truck in front of our home.
Rocky ran to the kid laying in the street and curled up against her, preventing anyone to come close to her.
When the ambulance arrived, the neighbors had to get my father to call Rocky so they could place the kid in the ambulance.
There was nothing to do, he was only allowing my father to touch the kid, so my father had to carry her in the ambulance.
As he did, Rocky jumped in and refused to get off, not wanting to leave the little girl.
So Rocky went to the hospital in the ambulance, my father following with his car to bring him back home.
Once at the hospital, he agreed to come back with my father.
Rocky refused to eat for 3 days and disappeared on the fourth one.
We found him laying down under the window of the bedroom of the little girl
who came back home from the hospital that day.
The mother tried to let him come in the house but he knew that he was not supposed to enter in other homes,
so he just kept vigil under the window for about a week, until the little girl could come outside in our yard
to play with him or fall asleep laying against his belly.
He was refusing any food offered by the neighbors but was taking what we were bringing him.
Rocky became the hero in the neighborhood
and mothers who were afraid that he would hurt their kids before the incident changed their mind.

"If there is a heaven, it’s certain our animals are to be there.
Their lives become so interwoven with our own,
it would take more than an archangel to distangle them."
-- Pam Brown