This depiction of a pack of bärenbeissers grappling with some European brown bears is displayed in The German Hunting and Fishing Museum.
I had seen other places where these dogs were listed as feists or curs, but they obviously too large to be feists and too bulldoggish to be curs.
Brown bears used to be relatively common in Bavaria, and they used these bulldog types to hunt them. They are currently extinct in Germany, but one did show up in 2006 and was dispatched for killing livestock.
Note that the coat is a bit longer on these dogs than on the modern boxer. The dos had live and work in the often frigid conditions of the Alps, which means that a very short coat would not have been asset.
The modern boxer is derived from crossing the bullenbeisser/bärenbeisser type with the English bulldog, which is why the bulldog influence in the conformation could readily be seen in the early boxers.
These dogs remind me of a dog of partial boxer heritage I knew quite well. I now see her bärenbeisser heritage in her long tail, thicker coat, and powerful body. Though retriever blood also coursed through her veins, she was very much a boxer dog. Playful, protective, often plucky and possessed of a self-confidence that one rarely sees in a dog. She seemed to know that she was the fellest beast around these parts and all other creatures, both wild and domestic, seemed to know it.
Ah…. This made my morning. I must share.
I am making a collar for a dog that looks very much like these dogs. I showed his owners your posts and was informed that they spent three nights reading through your blog.
Oh. You’re in luck.
I have photos of the collars that the bear dogs wore.
Really?
Can you email them to me?