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One on one, yes, they will. One dog against a pack, about all he can do is raise the alarm.

They’re white death on coyotes in Nevada tho. You’ve heard of all this “alpha roll” nonsense from dog trainers? Well, when you see a real alpha dog do it to another domestic dog, you see that what wolves and real alpha dogs do isn’t anything like what these dog trainers are telling people to do. Our Kuv picked up a golden retriever who had the lack of sense to mark territory on our farm by the neck, flipped it into the air and slammed it on the ground. It looked like something you see on a WWF event. The golden retriever (sweet dog, wouldn’t hurt a fly, but not terribly bright marking on another dog’s turf) instantly said “OK, you’re the boss!” and they were buddy-buddy instantly.

Seeing what these dogs do to coyotes, tho, is very different. They pick up a coyote by the neck, flip it one way off to the side, then whip their head back the other way, snapping the coyote’s neck. I don’t think they could pull that off with a wolf, which will weigh about the same as the Kuvasz.

When I say they’ll do 35MPH — that’s not some BS estimate, inflated by bragging. No, that’s from me on a Honda ATV, with a digital speedometer, gunning my throttle to catch up to our Kuvasz who was chasing down a coyote across our fields. He saw this thing from hundreds of yards away, lit the afterburners and went for it. I saw this start, grabbed a rifle and went after him. He held it against a fence for me to shoot it. They’re really smart dogs that way - he reckoned if I was going to do the dirty work, there was no point getting all dirty and chewed up. But headed across flat ground, he was doing every bit of 35MPH for over a half mile. Fortunately, the top speed of the ATV was 45MPH, and I could catch up to him - then I paced him at 35MPH at the end of this chase.

All of these flock guarding dogs are wonderful dogs, but I would not recommend them to people who live in cities. They’re highly protective, and they’ll protect your family very well and capably, but they want to expand their territory. The dogs in Nevada tend to roam around two square miles of territory they call their ‘home turf.’ We never allowed ours out of the yard without one of us by his side. The sheep dogs would stay with the flocks. Left to their own devices (eg, after October, when the lambs had been shipped), the pyr/maremmas would start roaming and getting into trouble in other people’s yards - a couple miles from the home base of the farm.

I tell people to think of owning one of these dogs pretty much the same way they’d be living if they had a live-in Marine corporal in their house. No greater friend to you, no greater threat to an intruder. And “intruders” are determined on his terms, not yours. So if some shifty salesman stops by, and you think he’s a shifty SOB, but not worth killing, guess what? The dog might not understand the “not worth attacking” part of this evaluation. They’ll pick up on your body language and voice tone, arrive at a conclusion and want to stand between you and the shifty salesman at the door. One wrong move by the salesman and it’s ‘game on’ for the guard dog.

But for people who are OK, whom you introduce and who aren’t scared of big dogs? Oh, they’re huge lovable furballs. Just complete suck-ups. Imagine 120lbs of dog gradually moving his upper body onto your lap to get maximum smoochies.

We miss our big furball every day. The biggest problem with all of them is that they have a short lifespan. There’s no justice in a world where useless yappy dogs that fit in a purse live to be 20, and useful dogs barely make it to 12.