Most dogs are not going to attack sheep, especially when they know they are "with" their owners. Attacks aren't the problem. The problem is that dogs can try to herd the sheep, or just scamper about, possibly barking, and set them running, that this can scare and stress the sheep, and in some cases put them in danger. The shepherd's job is to watch over sheep that are as calm as possible and fully engaged in the process of quietly feeding or tranquilly ruminating. Two or three episodes of interruptions by perfectly nice dogs a day, and the shepherd is losing out in his work.

The fact that you can see animals or not isn't necessarily a criterion. Just round a mountain flank there may be five hundred sheep, and your dog may get there first. Up in the rocks, heads down into the shade, there may be a number of sheep that a doggie movement and bark may set on the move over potentially dangerous ground.

To be honest, I've often walked in the mountains with a dog (or friends' dog) off the leash. But if the dog's obedient, he should be kept walking close to his owners. If he's not obedient, or not trained, he should be on a leash. There are heaps of web references to advice to mountain walkers to keep their dogs on the leash in the alpage (the cow and sheep parts of the mountains), along with all the places where it is obligatory (some national parks) or dogs completely forbidden (other national parks and nature reserves).

Hey I'm not the only one taking shortcuts:

• I never said he was living off tourism, I quoted my friend M. saying that.

• I'm saying he's living off subsidies, yes, and that he's not the only item of the mountain for which the State pays subsidies, thus he shouldn't act as if he owns it. Hell everyone besides farmers/herders in those tiny villages up there is employed by the State: EDF, ONF, DDE, and they don't act as if they own the mountain.

• I never said he was living off goat cheese sales, I mentioned an economic ecosystem with (goat) cheese in it. Who knows how much of his income is down to goat cheese, if at all.

• Maybe he isn't driving a 4x4, but since I've decided that I don't like him, let me have my fantaisies about him.

• I don't know anything about summer/winter huts. The guy was just settling in to this one.

• Someone is letting something shit in mountain streams (we ran out of water on that same climb higher up, but didn't dare drink stream water because there was shit at different levels). Maybe it's only bovine shit.

• I'm thinking this white fluffy dog was not a sheepdog but a companion / protection dog, but I may indeed be wrong based on ignorance. My ignorance probably revolves around me wondering why a sheepdog is busy sleeping at his master's feet and not herding sheep (we only saw sheep further up, I should say much further up, but here again I admit to being ignorant about sheep moving patterns)

• People who tell others to go home to their country may not all vote Front National, but they sure talk the same. Allow me a swipe at him for this.

afew you're getting angry because you read in my shortcuts that I'm challenging a lifestyle you once held. You know that not all shepherds are completely like this, and not all people commenting on shepherds are completely ignorant. And you should know that I'm angry with this guy and only using aspectual factors of his as a shortcut to swipe at him, just like he has done for me, the polluting tourist from another country (same country).

To cut it short: the polluting tourist from another country swipes at the 4x4-driving and front-national-voting shepherd.

None of this would have happened if I had told him "ok, sure my friend will tie his dog, and now how about a bonjour with a smile?" instead of reacting to his agressiveness with a swipe at his dog without a leash (this is standard me: I once told a hostess at an airport to make the pilot get off the plane so that I could have a seat, after the airline had cancelled my mega-confirmed booking).