Consistent quality: key to Boerboel breeding

Beverli Katz, one of South Africa’s top Boerboel breeders, claimed the prestigious national award of SA Stud Book Stud Herd of the Year for other species in 2020. In addition, her stud has bred the two highest-appraised male Boerboels in the world. Jeandré van der Walt visited her at Klein Sandfontein Boerboels and Boarding Kennels on the outskirts of Caledon to learn about her breeding techniques.

- Jeandré van der Walt

Breeding Boerboels is a passion and joy for Beverli Katz, owner of Klein Sandfontein Boerboels, which operates from the family farm nestling in the Western Cape’s Overberg. She says that her love for animals stems from her early years and the influence of her late father, Phillip Katz, and grandfather, Morris Katz.

“On the farm, we had an Arabian horse stud and then a Welsh pony stud. For 10 years, we also had a dairy, where I was in charge of record-keeping and attending to the calves. When my children were still small, I bred and showed budgies for a few years. I also farmed Dohne Merinos and got my Springbok Head for wool classing.”

In 1992, Beverli opened a boarding kennel for dogs, cats and birds on the farm.

“This is where I met my first Boerboel puppy in 1999. I swore that one day, I’d wait for her to have pups and own one too,” she recalls.

That day never came, but Beverli started doing her homework on the breed and visited various Boerboel breeders in search of a puppy. Eventually, she came home with two bitches.

Unfortunately, her stud got off to a poor start, as these two animals failed to develop into top-rate breeding dogs. A year later, once she had done all the health testing, she realised that she had started wrongly and needed to go back to the drawing board.

She also struggled to find a mentor, but then her path crossed with those of top Boerboel breeders George Fritz, owner of Maranata Boerboels, and Stoffel Bloem, owner of the Ysterberg and Mouzer Boerboel Stud, and this proved to be a breakthrough for her.