What is the leading cause of in Boxer dogs

By Isabella Storyclaire

last updated November 18, 2024

Contributions sourced from

How Long Do Boxer Dogs Live? (And How To Increase It)

To scroll through the social media feeds of Boxer groups is to come away despairing at the state of a breed apparently beset by endless health problems.

10 to 12 years is the average lifespan usually ascribed to Boxers.

But quite a few owners lose their dogs much earlier, frequently from cancer.

On the other hand, some Boxers reportedly reach 13 to 15 years. There are documented cases of Boxers living as old as 16.

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Making Sense Of The Boxer Dog Lifespan

According to Karla Spitzer, who penned The Everything Boxer Book, 10 years of age for a Boxer equates to about 60 for you or me.

However, just as in people, there is an enormous amount of variation between the health of individual Boxers at age 10.

Spitzer says some Boxers that compete in agility are still sailing over jumps at age 12 and beyond, whereas others can hardly get air once they hit six years old.

Its worth noting, too, that the information out there on the Boxer dog lifespan is not particularly reliable, for a number of reasons.

Geneticist Dr John Armstrong, who headed the Canine Diversity Project investigating longevity in pet dogs told the The American Boxer Club in an interview before his death that a host of problems undermine the reliability of the information we have on breed lifespans, from errors in data collection to mistakes in its analysis.

Neither vets nor owners are required to report dog deaths and much of the information that exists is gathered by surveys.

This methodology relies on owners memories and the samples may not be representative of all dogs.

Studies that record deaths in veterinary settings, for instance, overlook dogs that live long, problem-free lives and die naturally at home from old age.

Yet the fact remains that smaller and mixed breed dogs generally live longest and the Boxer is neither of these.

What Do Boxers Usually Die From?

According to a 20-year study of 70 000 dogs of 82 breeds by the University of Georgia, cancer is the leading cause of death for Boxers, accounting for 44.3% of deaths.

During the research period, neurological disorders accounted for 18.2% of Boxer deaths and trauma claimed 7% of Boxer dog lives.

Keep in mind, though, the study is now approaching two decades old.

Most of the dogs involved would have been kibble fed, vaccinated, neutered and pumped full of chemicals in the form of wormers, flea and tick preventatives and medication.

All of these things are now understood to contribute to ill health and early death in not just Boxers, but all dogs. (More on this shortly.)

Why Do Boxers Die Young ..And Have So Many Health Issues?

A Boxers lifespan is determined by a combination of nature and nurture.

The following are some of the factors that influence longevity in Boxers.

Genetics

Genetics play an inescapable part in determining a Boxers lifespan.

Choose a breeder who screens breeding stock for every possible disease known to occur in Boxers.

Some bloodlines live longer than others, so do your research.

You want to know not just how long the parents of the dam and sire lived, but how long their parents lived, and how long siblings and extended family lived and with what health issues.

Inbreeding

Lowered genetic diversity is why purebred dogs tend to have shorter lifespans and more health problems than mongrels, which benefit from whats known as hybrid vigor.

Over-use of popular sires within a breeding community can exacerbate the genetic bottleneck.

Based on genetics and inbreeding alone, you might be tempted to think your dogs lifespan is set by his lineage and theres little you can do but enjoy the time you have.

This couldnt be further from the truth.

Nurture, or the conditions a dog is exposed to, play an incredibly powerful role in mitigating Nature, or the predispositions hes born with.

The Owner

His owner is either the single best or worst thing a Boxer has going for him.

A puppy is born with a range of infinite possibilities contained within his genes.

Which of those possibilities are unlocked depends on an interplay of environment, lifestyle and the various inputs that go into his body over a lifetime.

In other words, your Boxers health and longevity will depend on the multitude of choices YOU make about his care.

Some of these choices, like whether or not to neuter, you make once and cant un-make.

Others, like what food you put in your Boxers bowl and what drugs you have him take, are made over and over, on a daily basis for better or worse.

Little by little you are either building a healthy Boxer, or laying the foundations for disease.

Things that form part of many modern pet dogs lives but which increase the likelihood that a Boxer will suffer ill health and die young include:

Neutering
Kibble
Tap water
Vaccines
Chemical wormers
Flea and tick preventatives
Drugs
Obesity
Stress
Trauma and misadventure
Too little (or too much) exercise
Exposure to environmental toxins

Some of these are no brainers.

Clearly a lean dog is healthier.

Others come as a shock to owners who have, after all, been advised by trusted vets to neuter their dogs and feed them kibble.

Often the result of a visit to a conventional vet is another medication prescribed or vaccine given.

Chemical wormers are doled out month after month, with no discussion of potential side effects.

Theres even less education of owners in the concept of toxic accumulation and how this will inevitably end up affecting their dog.

Boxers walk through life with faces marred by tear stains, feet reeking of Fritos and owners led to believe its all normal.

Hives appear out of nowhere and Benadryl is popped on the regular.

Boxer acne is the name given to bleeding chins, like its some rite of passage.

Plastic bowls are blamed for causing contact irritation, with barely a thought for what goes in the bowl.

Dogs itch and gnaw their paws and suffer repeated UTIs, ear infections, room-clearing gas and diarrhea that never really seems to stay away for long.

Irritable Bowel Disease, the vet says. Boxer colitis.

Chalk it up to the breed.

They have sensitive stomachs.

Allergies are diagnosed and shots scheduled from here to eternity.

Skin lumps and bumps are biopsied and excised.

All the while neither vet nor owner ever arrives at the faintest understanding of the root cause of all this chaos.

The cause?

Multifactorial, yes.

A mystery?

No.

Have a look back at the dot pointed list above.

Well address each one in turn.

Neutering

Neutering has long been synonymous with responsible dog ownership.

The motivation has always been the prevention of unwanted litters but many owners are under the impression it is better for their dogs health.

The weight of current evidence suggests just the opposite.

Diseases that occur more commonly in neutered and spayed dogs, include:

Mast cell tumors
Bone cancer
Acute pancreatitis
Obesity
Hemangiosarcoma (both splenic and cardiac)
Transitional cell carcinoma
Hip dysplasia
Cranial cruciate ligament rupture (CCL tears)
Endocrine disorders like Cushings disease
Behavior problems including noise phobias, fear of storms, aggression

Neutering also delays the closure of the growth plates, causing Boxers to grow abnormally tall.

This distorts the anatomical proportions, increasing the chances of arthritis.

Boxers are naturally medium-sized dogs, ranging from about 21 to 25 inches in height at the shoulder with lean and muscular bodies.

The size an individual Boxer reaches depends on a range of factors including sex, bloodlines and diet as well as neuter/spay status.

Spay incontinence is not uncommon in females.

(If your Boxer has this problem, there are products called bitches britches, which can help. Theyre also fantastic when your intact female Boxer goes into heat. )

There is a lot of misinformation circulated when it comes to spay and neuter procedures.

The only health conditions they definitively cut the incidence of are pyometra (uterine disease) in females and testicular cancer in males.

In much the same way, a mastectomy in a healthy woman prevents breast cancer.

An organ cant ever become diseased if youve already cut it out.

Prominent integrative veterinarian Dr Karen Becker stopped routinely desexing her patients after seeing dogs go on to develop disease like clockwork.

The damage done by removing an animals hormone-producing sex organs is more pronounced the younger its done.

Even vets who still advocate the neutering of all pets are generally aware that Boxers, as a slow maturing breed, should absolutely not be neutered or spayed until two years of age.

Kibble

Australian vet and breeder of Rottweilers and Great Danes, Dr Ian Billinghurst draws a causal link between the adoption of widespread kibble feeding and the emergence of many of the diseases now seen in pet dogs.

His observations in both his own and client dogs over many years led him to pioneer the BARF (Biologically Appropriate Raw Food) model of raw feeding which is outlined in his fantastic book, Give Your Dog a Bone: The Practical Commonsense Way to Feed Dogs for a Long Healthy Life.

Dr Billinghurst found dogs fed on a raw meaty bone-based diet thrived and were spared many of the health complaints common in dogs fed highly processed commercial dog food which is a) cooked and b) full of fillers, preservatives and GMO ingredients of dubious quality that are contaminated with pesticides, herbicides and other chemical residues.

Weed killer in dog food?

In 2015, research scientist Anthony Samsel and his Massachusetts Institute of Technology-based colleague Stephanie Seneff tested pet foods and found every single one they examined contained significant levels of glyphosate.

Glyphosate is the active ingredient in the ubiquitous herbicide Roundup, which has been classified by the World Health Organization as a probable carcinogen since 2010.

Monsanto, the company responsible for Roundup, disputes the link between its product and cancer but has made payouts to people whove developed Non-Hodgkin Lymphoma after using it.

You can read Samsel and Seneffs paper Glyphosate, pathways to modern diseases IV: cancer and related pathologies.

Aside from the problems with kibble, the sheer absence of raw meaty bones from a dogs diet is, on its own, highly detrimental regardless of what is fed in their place. Raw meaty bones are the single most important food for ensuring the overall health of a Boxer, including the dogs dental health. Its a subject vet Dr Tom Lonsdale explores in great detail in his book Raw Meaty Bones Promote Health.

Nutrition starts in the womb and what the mother of your Boxer puppy is fed will make a difference to your dogs early development and long term health prospects.

The intergenerational impact of eating a biologically-inappropriate diet (defined as cooked food rather than raw meat, bones and offal) was stunningly revealed in the decade-long study known as Pottengers Cats: A Study in Nutrition.

Of course, the studys findings apply equally to dogs and their natural diet and to any specices.

Thinking of feeding your Boxer a homemade diet? Read this first.

Tap Water

Tap water contains a raft of well-documented contaminants including pesticide residues, trace industrial chemicals and disinfectants used in the water treatment process.

Boxers should drink only properly filtered or spring water.

Note that jug-style water filters usually address cloudiness but dont remove the necessary contaminants.

A Reverse Osmosis Filter System or a whole-house filter offer much more robust filtration.

Vaccines, Chemical Wormers, Flea And Tick Treatments

What all these products have in common is that they introduce into your Boxers body harmful toxins.

Whether in the form of the adjuvants and preservatives in vaccines or the chemical ingredients responsible for the anti-parasitic effect of dewormers and flea and tick medications, these substances accumulate in your dogs system.

The Natural Vets describe this as a stacking effect, that eventually breaks out in disease if the load becomes too great.

All these products can and do cause serious side effects up to and including seizures and death.

Boxers are not infrequently represented in these grim tallies.

Make informed decisions.

Consider your dogs actual exposure to the diseases and parasites these products are designed to prevent.

Explore natural alternatives.

Know about titers rather than automatic yearly revaccination.

Understand how heartworm is and isnt transmitted.

Your dogs best defence in all cases is proper diet.

One of the many benefits of a fresh, raw, species-appropriate diet is that dogs develop a level of vitality that means theyre less susceptible to disease in all its forms.

Drugs

Medication manages health complaints by suppressing symptoms.

One of the weaknesses of this approach is that it does nothing to address the cause of those symptoms, which inevitably return.

On top of that, drugs add to the bodys toxic burden, paving the way for more serious and chronic conditions down the track.

Some drugs are worse than others, the steroid prednisone being one commonly prescribed pharmaceutical that comes with many side effects.

Obesity

A majority of American pet dogs are overweight or obese, a problem never seen in their closest free-living relative, the wolf.

There is plenty of evidence that obesity contributes to all kinds of secondary disease and shortens lifespans.

One way to keep your dog lean and fit is to incorporate regular fasting into his routine, as happens in the wild.

It is totally unnatural for dogs to eat every day and their bodies are not designed for it.

Fasting not only reduces the overall fat content of your Boxers diet to more healthy levels, but it is known to accelerate healing and detoxification.

One fast day each week is a good place to start in an adult Boxer.

Stress

Emotional wellbeing is as important as physical fitness.

Boxers are sensitive souls.

If yours is crated inappropriately, kept too hot or cold, lonely, allowed to develop separation anxiety, denied the psychological satisfaction of chewing raw meaty bones, it will detract from his overall health and wellbeing.

Stress in dogs can be triggered by:

Changes to the daily routine
Dog daycare
Kenneling
Vet visits
Illness or injury
Lack of exercise and play
Lack of mental stimulation
Death of another dog in the household
Moving house
Owner going to hospital, or away on holiday
Divorce and the sudden absence of one family member, and
Addition of a new puppy, or baby, to the household

Music specially designed to calm dogs can be very useful.

The best on the market is the iCalm Through a Dogs Ear music, specially composed to soothe dogs.

Trauma And Misadventure

As the third leading cause of death for Boxers, trauma takes many forms.

Boxers exuberance perhaps makes them more vulnerable than more sedate breeds to:

Escaping the backyard if left alone
Being hit by car
Jumping out of a moving car when unrestrained
Being thrown from a car when unrestrained during a collision
Dog fights
Bee stings (can lead to obstructed airways and anaphylactic shock)
Snake bites
Injuries ranging from sprains and tears to impalement on branches
Joint damage from jumping too high or on hard surfaces

Thankfully, many of these scenarios are preventable with proper supervision, training and management.

Crating can be part of keeping your Boxer safe during the training phase of his development but has to be done right.

Ex-Navy SEAL Mike Ritland is a phenomenal dog trainer with a brilliant online program based on his book Team Dog: How to Train Your Dogthe Navy SEAL Way

He recommends against wire crates.

Your dog will likely feel more comfortable in the closed-in plastic style of crate that creates more of a den-like feel.

Too Little (Or Too Much) Exercise

For Boxers, overdoing it is as much of a risk as not getting enough exercise.

Be sure not to take your Boxer on long walks until hes two years of age.

The repetitive, jarring action can result in joint damage that only shows later in life.

Short play sessions with stop-start action and rest are better exercise for puppies than lengthy walks.

Throw frisbees and balls so that your Boxer leaps low to the ground, and long, rather than performing acrobatic jumps high in the air.

Soft frisbees are easier on the mouth.

A ball on a string usually gets a Boxer excited.

Try a flirt pole or you can make your own using something like a whip handle with a soft rag tied to it.

Be careful of causing your Boxer to make too many sudden changes of direction.

Exposure To Environmental Toxins

Household cleaners, scented candles, paint, lawncare chemicals, pesticides and herbicides are all sources of toxins that damage the health of your Boxer.

Consider ways to reduce your dogs toxic exposures. You might:

Use vinegar and citrus to clean
Invest in a steam cleaner in place of mopping floors with strong-smelling chemical cleaners
Get an air purifier to filter harmful particles including Volatile Organic Compounds (VOCs) commonly found in indoor air