One evening, a dog ran through the village where I grew up, carrying a dead terrier in its mouth. It wasn’t until later that it became clear it was the herd protection dog from the alp above the last houses. It had carried out its duty.
The dead animal belonged to an elderly neighbor. She had been walking him near the alp, where wolves have been roaming for several years and herd protection dogs are a part of everyday life. Her dog had run off, straight into the middle of the herd.

People, too, repeatedly get too close to the guarded herd. Just recently, Rega airlifted two hikers to the hospital in Val Sumvitg, a small side valley in Graubünden. One had fallen after an encounter with two livestock guard dogs. It was not an attack. An encounter, a fall. And it wasn’t the wild animal that stopped them, but the tamed one.
With the wolf comes back more than just a predator: dogs, fences, rules. Mountain bikers don’t need to fear the wolf, but rather what humans have built up around it.

Bred against its own kind 

Genetically speaking, the livestock guard dog is a wolf. Over generations, humans have bred the predator to the point where it protects what its own ancestors prey on: sheep and goats. It is likely that the wolf domesticated itself to some extent. The tamest animals tolerated the proximity of human camps, found food there, and passed on this trustfulness as an advantage over “wild” wolves. This also benefited humans. If a bear approached the camp, a trusting wolf would be the first to sound the alarm. Thus, the animal that once scavenged for food scraps by the fire at night soon became a guardian against other predators.

The dog does not stand beside the herd as a guard; it is part of it. The puppy joins the lambs when it is just a few weeks old, and within a narrow window of time, it bonds with them as if they were its own family. If this window is missed, the puppy will not grow up to be a herd protection dog. In southern Australia, such dogs have been protecting a colony of little penguins since 2006—a colony that foxes had nearly wiped out. Raised among the birds, the Maremmas defend them just as they would a flock of sheep. The wolf sticks with its pack; the dog sticks with its flock. The same loyalty, just directed differently. 

What prevents him from killing the lambs himself is the actual breeding trick. Behavioral biologist Raymond Coppinger described the wolf’s hunt as a fixed sequence: stalk, chase, grab, kill. In the case of the livestock guard dog, breeding has suppressed this hunting instinct. What remains is a predator with its hunting program deactivated, one that stays with the herd and barks at strangers but does not attack. The goal, therefore, is deterrence. Anyone who has ever been chased by an ordinary dog knows the difference: in that case, the speed triggers the hunting reflex, and the dog chases after the fleeing rear wheel. The livestock guard dog, on the other hand, does not attack out of a hunting instinct. It does not see the mountain biker as prey to be pursued, but as an intruder that must be stopped. It blocks the path, barks, and pushes. What stops the mountain biker is a tamed animal, not a wild one. If the dog has no intention of attacking, why do people keep getting injured?

Why Our Reflexes Fail

The livestock guard dog treats everything unfamiliar as a potential danger and keeps it at a distance until it is certain that it poses no threat to the herd. Laypeople often misinterpret its body language. What looks like an attack is actually a warning. The livestock guard dog proceeds in stages: first barking, then growling, then a mock attack. The bite comes last and is extremely rare. The entire display is intended to prompt the intruder to retreat. Whether the situation escalates depends on human behavior. And when we’re scared, we tend to do a lot of things wrong. A white dog weighing forty kilos or more, running toward you while barking, triggers our most primal reflexes: run away, scream, stare at it, or throw your arms up in the air. All of these are counterproductive. Running challenges the dog, and in a sprint, we’ll lose no matter what. Screaming or staring at it sends another threatening signal that stokes its aggression.

The correct behavior is the opposite of the fear response—and that’s why it’s so difficult: stand still, keep facing the dog but avoid its gaze, and slowly back away to create distance. All of this while an animal that looks as if it’s about to attack is coming toward you. Fear itself isn’t so easy to shake off. And the dog certainly won’t fall for a ruse. If you’re afraid, you smell it. Neurobiologist Biagio D’Aniello exposed dogs to the sweat of frightened people. The animals became more nervous, and their heart rates rose. So pretending to be calm isn’t enough. The dog can smell the fear underneath.

For mountain bikers, the situation is particularly tricky. Exercise sweat is chemically different from fear sweat, so that’s not the issue. The situation becomes tricky for other reasons: The rider is fast, often appears unexpectedly, and the helmet and mirrored sunglasses further agitate the dog, according to the National Center for Livestock Protection. Here, too, the rule applies: dismount, walk the bike, and slow down completely. For a sport that thrives on the “flow,” this is a bit of a burden. But it’s the only thing that works. 

Just how dangerous moving quickly can be was demonstrated in late July 2026 in Valais, when a top trail runner was attacked and bitten by three dogs. The outcome of the incident sets a precedent for mountain bikers: the official trail was immediately closed and rerouted at the farmer’s explicit request. The case illustrates the new power dynamics on the mountain: When a fast-moving athlete encounters a watchful dog, in case of doubt it is not the dog that is restricted, but the trail that is rerouted for safety reasons. Anyone who blindly charges into a pack and provokes a conflict risks, in the worst-case scenario, having the trail closed to everyone.

One might think the dog is the problem. But a dog that simply lets strangers pass would be useless against the wolf and worthless to the farmer. The same strictness that troubles the mountain biker keeps the wolf away from the lambs.

Alpine farming is more than just a culture

Over 21,500 wolves now live in Europe again, spread across 34 countries—a 58 percent increase in ten years. For many farmers, this is one of the biggest upheavals in a generation. Those who take their sheep to summer pastures herd them into the barn at night, mend fences, and often search in vain for help. The effort required to protect the herd is considerable, yet the fear of animals being killed by wolves remains. No other issue has shaken alpine farming so profoundly in a quarter-century. For many, the physical and psychological challenge has become too great.

With every abandoned alp, it is not just a piece of culture that disappears. Sustainable alpine farming makes a significant contribution to the preservation of biodiversity. When livestock are absent, the Grünerle—the most common shrub in the Alps—is the first to take over. Over time, biodiversity declines: the shrub enriches the soil, a few species outcompete all others, and wildflowers and rare plants barely have a chance to grow. In Switzerland, pastureland has shrunk by an area the size of the canton of Schaffhausen over the past 25 years. Year after year, alpine pastureland equivalent to the size of Lake Walensee is turning into forest. Sheep, goats, and cows keep the landscapes open—landscapes that mountain bikers also love.

More wolves, more order

The fact that the wolf has returned at all has little to do with prey. For centuries, it was hunted out of Europe; then, in 1979, the nations signed a protection agreement in Bern—a ban on hunting. The last remaining packs spread out again from Italy and the east until one crossed the Alps. The wild returnee is here because we decided so. And whether it stays is also up to us: Since 2024, protections for it have been relaxed, and in some places, hunting has resumed.

With the wolf, a piece of wilderness returns. Our response to this is anything but wild: a domesticated dog, a fence, a barrier, a rule. One might see this as a loss—nature being regulated more and more strictly. But one can also recognize in it the opposite of a clumsy solution. We don’t have to tame the wolf to live with it. We simply organize the space around it. And that’s enough: Studies show that even in densely populated Central Europe, wolves remain shy and wild; they avoid humans, roam at night, and steer clear of human paths. Notable individual wolves are shot, but by no means only them. Switzerland now proactively regulates the population; in the winter of 2024/25, 92 wolves were culled—including several entire packs—before they could cause any damage. The Alps are not becoming wilder; they are being managed more carefully so that the wild and the tamed can coexist. Ultimately, we are not taming the animal, but the terrain—and now even digitally. On the interactive map provided by the Livestock Protection Office, shepherds update in real time where their herds are currently grazing. Anyone who directly avoids these zones while planning their route on a laptop sidesteps the conflict from the outset. This saves you from having to dismount and push your bike, allowing you to stay in the flow.

Mountain bikers hardly ever catch a glimpse of the wolf. They have to deal with dogs, fences, signs, and restrictions. And right in the middle of it all, we find a way to coexist. It’s no longer just between hikers and mountain bikers, but between the wolf roaming the pasture and the farmer who still keeps it open—because both were there before us.

The question remains: how long will this work out? Whether we’ll regulate the mountains more and more strictly so they remain as we know them. Or whether we’ll learn to be guests up there, where others have already been—the wolf, the farmer, the sheep, the dog. The livestock guard dog offers no answer to this. It simply stands in our way and waits for us to dismount.