My Grandmother

This page is dedicated to the woman who started it all... my Granny! Always an animal lover since she was a small child I suppose it was no surprise to anyone than that she should venture into dogs, goats, rabbits, not to mention chickens and anything else that had two legs or more.

She has invested an enormous part of her life to The Boxer the best part of forty-five years or more, trying to better the breed with every litter and yet hardly anyone has heard of her. Well I thought this won’t do I have to tell people just what my granny has done for the breed in Ireland!

She had four children and countless numbers of chickens and goats. It wasn’t unusual for her to set of to a goat show with one of the goats in the boot of the car! She also had an Irish Water Spaniel, a Cocker Spaniel and a Jack Russell called Polo that she found whilst out walking one day. The Irish Water Spaniel Lucky was shown successfully by my Aunt Carol in the children’s handling classes.

During the time when Mrs Ingram exhibited her dogs my granny and her became good friends sharing stories of their dogs and tips on rearing puppies over cups of tea.

My grandmother also bought in a red & white dog from Wales Silverstein Texas Sun to improve the head type in her bitches. Tex as he was called was a huge influence on the breed siring quality puppies to different lines. By far the most influential stud dog she bought in was Silverstein Simon D Of Berndrews who was three quarter dutch. Simon was a tall upstanding golden brindle & white who had an almost perfect boxer mouth. Something which is still rare these days. He produced pups with lovely mouths, good fronts and beautiful heads. He was well known about the ring as he was one of her top winning dogs although never an Irish Champion himself he did however sire many nice dogs who went on to become champions in their own right. In fact he was still siring pups when he was 12 years old! A testament to the longevity of Berndrews Boxers.

My granny judged north and south of the border but her main interest was showing and breeding her dogs so much that the judging fell to the Wye side and she focused on showing her dogs. Through good times and bad times she stuck with her boxers. She had four children, a full time job and the dogs to look after, but did she mind I don’t think so. Sometimes the dogs ate better than the family did!

Even though myself and my partner Kaling have taken over the helm of Berndrews Boxers my granny is still very much apart of Berndrews. She has always been there guiding my mum and me in the right direction showing us the faults that exist in dogs and trying to improve in them. I consider my grandmother to be one of the most important matriarchs of our breed next to Mrs Ingram of Tirkane Boxers.

So now you can say you have heard of Mrs Margaret Brannigan and her Boxers.

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