Judy Graham has been hiking in the San Juan Mountains near Silverton for more than three decades. But recently the 68-year-old has added something to the hiking sticks, water bottle, rain jacket and sketching supplies she always takes along — a loaded Glock.
Graham is arming herself because she fears the large, white Akbash dogs that guard sheep herds around Silverton and other high-mountain towns, particularly along the popular Colorado and Continental Divide trails. The aggressive dogs have continued to be a controversial backcountry problem in spite of efforts to lessen encounters between the dogs and recreationists.
“I have been hiking these mountains for a long time, but I won’t go out anymore without a gun,” said Graham, a painter who spends a lot of time in the backcountry to catalog scenes for her art.
Graham said last week she encountered a backpacker on the Colorado Trail who had been bitten by a guard dog and had to seek medical care in Silverton. Graham said she had to end her hike, as she has had to do too many times, in an effort to avoid the Akbash, which stand up to nearly 3 feet tall and can weigh up to 140 pounds.
She went before the San Juan County commissioners last week to ask for help with a problem complicated by the many land-management, law enforcement and county jurisdictions in the backcountry where the problems are occurring.
“We have a lot of seniors in this county who like to hike, and they are sometimes afraid to go out now,” San Juan County Commissioner Scott Fetchenhier said. “And what does this do to tourists?”
Fetchenhier said over the years there have been many incidents reported to many agencies.
Matt Janowiak, district ranger for the Columbine District of the San Juan National Forest, said he wishes more of those complaints would make it to his office so he can do something about the problem. His office has received only one in the past two years.
He said contracts with ranchers who have grazing permits now specify that the herds need to be at least a quarter-mile from the Colorado and Continental Divide trails. If animals are closer, the U.S. Forest Service can take away ranchers’ permits.
The problems with the Akbash first came to public attention in 2009 when a woman was bitten while riding her bike near Vail.
When attacks and encounters were continuing two years later, particularly around Silverton, the Bureau of Land Management and the Forest Service held an educational forum in Durango. The agencies began posting signs and handing out educational materials that warned hikers to avoid sheep herds and leash their dogs while passing through grazing areas. They advised recreationists not to run from or threaten the Akbash and other LPDs — livestock protection dogs.
Ranchers vowed then to raise the dogs differently so they wouldn’t be so prone to attacking hikers and cyclists. Ranchers exposed the dogs as puppies to more humans and bicycles.
But they didn’t expose them to waving sticks.
Some of the more recent human/dog run-ins may be tied to the proliferation of hiking sticks. Hikers who have snarling dogs running at them tend to raise their ski pole-like sticks in defense. The dogs see that as aggression and attack.
Veryl Goodnight, a 67-year-old Mancos artist who, like Graham, hikes a lot around Silverton for inspiration for her art, is a proponent of the dogs and blames waving sticks and rock throwing for some of the incidents.
She actually seeks out herds because she thinks the dogs are beautiful. She has portrayed them in paintings. Goodnight said when the dogs have run at her barking, with their fur standing on end, she stops and lets them sniff her. She has not had any problems.
“To me, they are part of the San Juan Mountain experience,” she said. “You wouldn’t ask for the Forest Service to get rid of bears because you encounter a bear.”
The problem will end, for this year, when the sheep are moved from the mountains next month.
Graham said she will continue her letter-writing and public-meeting campaign before the herds and dogs are brought back into the high country next summer. She is a dog lover and doesn’t want to have to shoot one. She remains concerned about her safety, and doesn’t want a child or someone’s pet dog to become victims of the Akbash.
“I don’t want to become the Diane Whipple of the San Juans,” said Graham, referring to a woman fatally mauled in San Francisco in 2001 by two large herd guard dogs of another breed.
Nancy Lofholm: 970-256-1957, nlofholm@denverpost.com or twitter.com/nlofholm
