As reported in Le Dauphiné Libéré and later on in The London Times, Pyrenean mountain dogs (Great Pyrenees) have been attacking tourists in the French Alps. The Pyrenean dogs, also known as Patous, were brought in to protect sheep in 1992 with the reapparance of the wolf in France. Pyreneans are known as sheep guarding dogs and are very good at their jobs. With the arrival of 1,000 Patous, the number of sheep deaths fell from 3,700 in 2005 to 2,500 in 2006.

The problems have been directed towards the tourists, however. There have been numerous attacks and mountain guides have been avoiding certain areas to avoid potential attacks. There also have been numerous Patou deaths from poisoning by mixing pork with antifreeze or slug repellant. The persons responsible for the poisonings have not been caught.

This story is really unfortunate. Great Pyrenees are gentle and friendly when socialized properly, and this is the whole problem. The dogs used in such programs come from what they call 'working lines'. They are not socialised at all, precisely to do their job as it should be: alert for all kind of danger coming from bears, wolves and even mankind. You cannot compare these dogs with the Pyrenean mountain dogs sold by breeders as familydog. It should be told that some tourists are not cautious when they meet a flock of sheep accompagnied by one or more dogs.

As a result of those troubles some media interviewed us about what is really going on out there.
You can read, look and even listen to those interviews by clicking on the logos.

- Belgian commercial television - © Vlaamse Media Maatschappij
- Belgian newspaper - © Het Laatste Nieuws

IMPORTANT NOTE
It's regrettable that the newscoverage is rather one sided, incomplete or even wrong (cfr. De Telegraaf, Dutch newspaper (...)). But as we all know it's komkommertijd (period without any REAL news) , so we should put things into perspective.

All pictures belong to Y. Scheyving | du champ d'ours © 2008 (unless mentioned otherwise) · All rights reserved.