NEED TO KNOW

• Stephanie Fallon has grown a following online documenting her life with Boerboels

• She talks exclusively with PEOPLE about the misconceptions of the ‘territorial’ dog breed and the one thing people should know before getting a Boerboel

• She notably emphasizes the grand cost that comes with owning a Boerboel

Boerboels are known for their strength and commanding presence, but according to a longtime owner, there’s a lot to learn and consider before making the decision to bring the powerful South African guardian breed home.

“If you’re going to get into this breed, it’s not cheap,” Stephanie Fallon tells PEOPLE exclusively. “You just think bigger dog, more food, more expensive vet bills.”

Fallon, a 46-year-old stay-at-home mom, has spent over a decade raising the dogs and has owned five Boerboels since first discovering the breed in 2008. Their first Boerboel, a puppy they brought home on Christmas Eve, lived with their family for a decade before it died in 2018.

Over the years, Fallon has learned that caring for such a large and powerful breed requires careful planning and significant resources. Everything — from food to veterinary care — scales up with the dog’s formidable stature.

“You just think bigger dog, more food, more expensive vet bills, more supplements, more preventive meds, ” she says.

Fallon says feeding the dogs alone can be a major expense. She currently feeds her Boerboels a balanced raw diet carefully curated by a canine nutritionist.

“We probably spend — this is going to sound outrageous — probably food alone about $800 a month,” she says.

That cost is largely due to the specialized diet she prepares for the dogs, which includes organ meats and a rotation of proteins to ensure balanced nutrition.

“Raw is one of those things that I say not to do until you know for sure that it’s balanced, because you can really mess your dog up,” she says.

“I order certain novelty proteins that I can’t get at the grocery store, because when it comes to a raw diet, you have to balance it properly so that they’re getting all the nutrients they need to grow, function and have optimal health.”

Even routine healthcare can be more expensive for a dog that size. Preventive medications, she says, often require multiple doses compared with those for smaller dogs.

“What an average-sized dog needs is one tablet — my dogs need like three tablets,” she says. “The price of everything is multiplied because they eat more food [and] they need more of everything — I sacrifice in many areas of my life to provide them with what they need.”

When considering the breed’s size and strength, Fallon also prioritizes safety training — including muzzle conditioning — even though she says her dogs are stable and well-trained in public.

The precaution, she explains, is simply responsible ownership for such a powerful breed. Boerboels are known for having one of the strongest bite forces in the canine world, with tests estimating their bite pressure at roughly 500 to 800 PSI (pounds per square inch).

“I want my vet staff to feel comfortable and safe doing their job — it’s not fair for them to worry [like] ‘Oh, if I poke him with this shot, is he gonna turn around?’ It’s not like a bite from a chihuahua,” she says.

She also emphasizes that training isn’t solely about aggression, but preparation.

“All dogs should be muzzle conditioned,” she says. “You don’t know when you’re going to need it.”

For Fallon, that kind of preparation is simply part of what it means to raise a Boerboel responsibly.

Read the original article on People