Sabertooth's mutation is what causes him to become mindless.
As we see in Origins, Victor is very aggressive, to the point of mindless killing. Even when killing someone will lead to problems for him. This is how Logan and Victor end up facing a firing squad, before Stryker recruited them. And then, Logan continued to pull Sabertooth back from his more feral instincts until Logan walked away from a blood bath. Without Logan to remind him of his human side, his animalistic side continued to take over. It's represented by the changes in Victor, his nails grow longer into inhuman claws, he grows hairier, his voice is gruffer, he starts running on all four.
Four years of blood baths between being recruited and leaving Team X was enough to make Logan abandon Victor, after 125 years of fighting in wars together. Then 8 years later without Logan, Victor has no problem in hunting down children for experimentation, just so he can get "revenge". Now take another 20 years* of being without a conscience, of giving into his mutant animalistic side, we get the X-Men Sabretooth.
This is inline with Comic Sabretooth, as he's defined by his animalistic blood lust.
20 years of no one telling him not to bleach his hair blond too.