History This page is not going to preach about some misguided romanticism, we will not discuss the ancient dogs of the past or what if any dog at all was brought over by Van Riejbeck. We shall not discuss the Egyptians or Ethiopian dogs and what if any relevance they have to the Boerboel. We will not talk about the alleged champion bullmastiffs that were used in the foundation Boerboels. We start by telling you that the Boerboel was a farm utility dog bred in different districts to assist the farming community, farmers had very little time to train their dogs, and it would most certainly have been a case of the dogs fitting in to the lifestyle of the particular farming community. A dog had to be genetically superior to withhold hostile attacks by both man and mammal. In particular, a dog had to be intelligent. We know that these dogs developed an immune system to combat many localised and topical diseases, they were able to withstand high temperatures on the open veld and move long distances over various terrains without succumbing to footpad problems; they developed characteristic behavioural traits still obvious today. In various districts the Boerboels had much longer legs, some had more stocky builds and some were hounds. Their colours were varied and would have probably included black and most certainly pie balds. The vast amounts of breeds of dogs used for the make-up of the Boerboel were most certainly old hunting type dogs. Some individuals still refer to the Boerboel as a common farm cur dog. The vast majority of dogs kept by the Afrikaaner community were all considered Boerboels, until that is the early 1980s, when a group of individuals decided to create a type for this farm dog and thus began the birth of the Sabt. After the emergence of farm machinery many farmhands and dogs became redundant, their role in guiding the bullocks on the field was no longer required; at this particular stage in history most dogs moved with their owners to the urban cities in order for the farming community to gain some future for there families. By the end of the 1980s apartheid was coming to an end and for most Afrikaaners living in the more urban areas life was rather dangerous. It was imperative for the minority to have a real guard dog, not just one that looked the part. At this stage in history the Boerboel became quite infamous and was fast becoming the ultimate canine deterrent within the Afrikaaner communities, unfortunately, due to common misconceptions, certain individuals associated large and imposing dogs as being the Boerboel standard and, even more alarming, as a most certain man-stopper. The shift from agile utility dog bred for courage and conviction slowly started evolving in to big fat English mastiff types, dysplastic cripples unable to jump a fence or walk over any far distance. Today a large minority of Boerboels are bred with size in mind, and what most individuals are purchasing are dogs with nothing more than a previous history.