South African Boerboel

Boerboel History

The boerboel mastiff is a large dog breed and has its origin from South Africa, they were bred for the soul purpose of guarding the homestead and were often the first line of defense against predators.The word boerboel means Farm dog. Old farmers tell many stories about the strength, agility and courage of the boerboel mastiff.

In the early days different big dog breeds was brought to South Africa and they were crossbred with each other and the result is the beautiful and powerful Boerboel Mastiff. There are still a lot of different opion about which breeds were crossbred to make the boerboel. But the general opion is that is was cross-breeding betwen different native South Africans canine and then crossbreed that with the big dogs the settlers from other parts of the world brought with then.

In 2010, the boerboel was listed as a fighting dog and was banned in Denmark along with 12 other dogs and they are not allowed to sell the breed in Denmark anymore