Where the Wild—and Dangerous—Dogs Roam

A Cummings School alumna confronts the problem of stray mastiffs on Tibetan plateau endangering people—and snow leopards
Tibet

Tibetan mastiffs were initially bred as pets for government officials and Chinese city dwellers, but it wasn’t long before owners began abandoning them. “People are the center of all conservation problems,” said Yang Yu. Photo: iStock

When Yang Yu, VG16, arrived in the Yushu Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture in southern Qinghai, China, the first thing she noticed was the dogs. Huge and black with thick ruffs of fur like lions’ manes, Tibetan mastiffs were everywhere. Many were leashed, lying in people’s yards to guard their houses. But plenty weren’t: Yu saw them sleeping in the streets, begging scraps from monks at monasteries, and, in one case, dozing under a prayer wheel.

Many locals take them for granted, but free-ranging Tibetan mastiffs are a growing problem on the Tibetan plateau. The dogs were initially bred in large numbers as pets for government officials and Chinese city dwellers, but it wasn’t long before owners began abandoning them. The dogs were tough to train, their coats too thick for the urban heat, and their fierce loyalty made them attack visitors. “If smaller dogs bite you, you just bleed,” Yu said. “If you get bitten by a Tibetan mastiff, you may lose a hand.” That’s not an exaggeration—in a few cases, dogs killed their owners.

Yu, an M.S. in conservation medicine graduate, came to the Qinghai Province in 2016 as a program coordinator at Gangri Neichog Research and Conservation Center to help do something about the growing numbers of free-ranging dogs. After demand for the mastiffs plunged a few years ago, breeders began abandoning them near monasteries, where the monks would feed them. The dogs overran the villages around the monasteries, and the problems started.

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