Even though we’ve been thinking about getting a boxer dog for over a year now, we’ve been seduced and thoroughly won over by continental bulldogs (aka contis). We discovered this Swiss breed at the Automnales dog show in Geneva, and it turns out that one of the boxer breeders I’d previously contacted – and who told me she was putting her boxer breeding on hold to focus on her other breed – is one of the very active members of the Swiss Conti Club, and she has two litters of puppies at the moment. We arranged a visit and, after a harrowing drive in the mountain goat passes, we ended up spending an hour and a half meeting the breeder, all her adult dogs and her puppies. The one that we had our eye on seems to have chosen us at the same time, because as soon as I sat down, it climbed into my lap and stayed there for the next half hour, fighting off any other puppy that was trying to get in on his turf. When he wasn’t on me, he was on Katy. It just seems that it’s happening very fast, but doesn’t feel forced, more so like the stars are aligned to make this work.