I first met a Boxer when I was about 7 or 8 years old my mothers best friend had a niece with a big red boy called “Tonto”, a real stallion of a dog with a head the size of a dinner plate. When they visited, Tonto would go with us kids everywhere, not a lot of traffic to bother about back in the 50s.

My near next encounter was when my parents lost their little Corgi, Jane, Mum was taken out by my Dad for a drive she thought, but they went via the Duke of Norfolk estate in Arundel, Sussex. There at the head gamekeeper’s house was a litter of pups. Mum was a black working Labrador, dad was the red Boxer belonging to the visiting Veterinarian!!!. So not a planned litter! Mum and Dad came home with a red and white bitch we called “Honey” she was very Boxer-like as a pup but got more like a Lab as she grew up.

Not long after she came, I left home, got married and had a family all very quickly. After a few years we had the offer of a cross miniature poodle, Boarder collie a bundle of black fluff, she was called “Sindy” by the children.When Sindy was 7 years old my eldest son, Gavin, came in from school one day asking if he could go to supper with a friend the next day as his dog had a litter of pups. I rang his mum to make sure it was OK. So at 6pm I had a call to collect my son, “come in” said Muriel “and have a peek at the pups”! Well what do you expect eight, four week old Brindle Boxer pups, so we stayed for ages! Knowing I just had to have one, the price being asked was £45 which does not seen much today but in 1977 I was working five mornings a week hairdressing for £11.50 plus tips, so the puppy was 4 weeks wages for me. All four of my children wanted a pup so they all agreed to go with out pocket money for 6 weeks we fibbed to my husband about how much she cost (naughty) and between us we scraped up enough, and Pippa came home when she was 9 weeks old. I know now she was no show dog, but she had a reasonable head and a super mouth (no neck she fell away at the croop and had no hind angulation) but we did not care she was the sweetest dog you could every had had and we never had a cross word with anything,

Pippa had a litter of four for us when she was 3 years old to Rahdervons Rakes Progress (2 CCs) a Seefeld Picasso son. But we were unable to keep one this time. Her second litter was a near disaster, we lost all but one pup but we did try again when she was 6 and we had a litter of 8 sired by Ailsa Argosy of Rahdervons (A Gremlin Summer Storm son) we kept two bitches, Carla and Tiffany. It was with these two girls that I started to have fun at open shows.

Carla was the better of the two but hated showing, Tiffany, however, loved it. Tiffany was mated to Famous Grouse but she lost her litter and we nearly lost her as well. When we went back to use Grouse with Carla, Grouse was not at all well so Sheila suggested we used his son Boski instead. He was going to Sweden very shortly so we did and we had a lovely litter of 7. From this litter we kept Diceulon Go For Broke (Laura) and Diceulon Mah Jon, (Leah). Laura at 7 months went up north to become the foundation of the Mulbrae kennels, Leah was here until she passed at 12 years, she had her 1st litter to our Feardorn Front Page Story (Biggles). He was the real start to my showing at Championship shows he was the four legged love of my life until my Angus (Diceulon Really Debonair) arrived, he is my second four legged love (also the great grandson of Diceulon Go for Broke so it goes all the way back to my 1st Boxer Pippa).