Cornishman in Africa: Christmas Boerboels.

Before coming to Africa they were something that I had never heard of.
The closest I could think was Glass balls one hung on the Christmas tree in December.
They would always get knocked off during some raucous game and smash into millions of tiny pieces, only ninety nine percent of which would be picked up by the Hoover, the rest would later get stuck in the soles of your feet because you were running around the house with nothing on your feet, even though you had been told by mother that you should wear your slippers around the house at all times.

Boerboel. A name that strikes fear into many Africans, black or white.
To others they are the epitome of the perfect family pet. (apart from the terrible wind)

When I first went to Zimbabwe for the interview I stayed with a family who had one called Zulu, he was a good sized dog. Maybe I should describe a boerboel. They are similar to an English Mastiff but with a longer snout, they are apparently a mix of a Mastiff (spookily enough) and a long legged bullterrier, whatever that is when it is at home.(some say also great dane and Rottweiler, but I have my doubts) The truth of the matter is that nobody really knows what has gone into them apart from the English mastiff bit.
They were bread to protect families on the great African migration and later to protect Mines, families and homesteads. As such they are unlike most guard dogs in that they are very good family dogs. So they are smart and catch on very quickly, if you are excepted into the house they will protect you also. This is what happened to me on my first visit. Zulu befriended me and stayed with me the whole time I was there. Of course I fell in love with the breed and when we all moved out there it seemed like the logical choice. Not least because Arthur was petrified of big dogs having been snapped at on two previous occasions by large hounds.
So we bought Willow and Mulberry, two beautiful pedigree Boerboels eight weeks old and already weighing seven kgs (and that was just their paws)
They were pampered, petted, prodded, poked and most of all loved to pieces.
They came everywhere with us stayed in the back of the double cab when we went shopping and were always there when we came back. Nothing was ever missing from the back in fact on a few occasions we even found some extras in there. (fingers, hats gloves)
These dogs grew up big and strong and were known throughout the neighbourhood as the lions, they stood about 75cm to the shoulder and weighed about 75kgs, they were huge. They were also very obedient. If you whistled or said, no (loudly) they would stop in their tracks and just stand.
We often went walking in the bush at the weekends with the dogs through our land.
The land was criss crossed with tracks leading between small villages and homesteads, so there were often people wandering across the land which was fine. Just occasionally the dogs would see someone before we would, and go careering off through the bush. It was a game to them and it made it all the more fun if their prey ran. It invariably did. If they only stood still the dogs had no interest what so ever. Children also bore no interest for the dogs whatsoever which was lucky really.
On one occasion we were walking up the drive and there were three young men walking towards us, they did not see the dogs to start with and they swaggered on up our drive in a fairly arrogant fashion.
The dogs shot out of an adjacent field at that moment onto the drive from a field and saw the three, and the three saw the dogs (lions) the three guys turned and ran so fast they left two shoes behind. It did not take them long, about three seconds, until they realised they were not going to outrun the dogs so headed for the trees, unfortunately the only trees within two miles were small saplings about 4 metres tall and 10 cm across the trunk.
The three young men shot up the trees to the top and the inevitable happened, the trees just bent down to the ground with the three occupants just at nose level to the dogs who had caught up buy now. The poor guys were absolutely petrified and could not move, which was just as well really as the dogs just lost interest as they were not running any more.
We released the guys from the trees and introduced them to the dogs and explained that they were just family pets and had not as yet killed too many people. I don’t think they were very reassured, and they left pretty quickly. We never saw them again and the reputation of the lions grew. Many of our friends were burgled or attacked at their properties, funny enough we never had any bother. We always kept the dogs inside at night though so no one could poison them, then break in.
A couple of years later we bread Mulberry with a Large Brindle male and on the 21st December 2006 she had 9 strong healthy puppies, which she reared fantastically even letting the family handle them right from the start.
We fell in love with all those puppies and hated it when it was time for them to go. We were going to keep one which we chose as it was the runt, well it looked it for the first three minutes until it started eating and within a week was by far and away the largest this was Boris. The other one we also wanted to keep was lighter than the rest so we called him Zippo and the name has stuck to this day.
So if you ever have to choose a dog and want a bundle of fun, and you have a huge garden, enjoy walking a lot, oh you will also need a good sense of humour and deep pockets when it comes to feed bills. I can whole heartedly recommend a Boerboel.
This was when we discovered the true meaning of Christmas Boerboels.

Denzil Bark.