Dear Editor,

How many more children are we going to sacrifice on “dog altar”? Would someone shake me from this reverie and tell me to quit my nightmare? Negligence of this essential matter evoked the thought that “we are gone to the dogs”.

I am most perturbed having read the details of the horror story in the Sunday Observer of October 9, 2016, ‘Vicious dog attack’ by Alphea Saunders, about this innocent little boy who was mauled.

And while you awake me, bear in mind that this little boy, his mother and his sister are still stuck in their nightmare.

A helpless mother, Aleiya Chin, pleading for help as these bloodthirsty hounds grabbed her baby while threatening to take his two-year-old sister Kendra. Her weapons, apart from some ineffective rocks, are her screams for help. And if what I read is the truth I shall liken the owner’s response to the rabid dogs’ attack as cold, cruel, callous and untouched by humanity. Wickedness!

Do we understand the value of our children?

I am not advocating cruelty to animals, but I am pleading that these mad hounds that are out for nothing but blood be put down without a second thought.

These unpredictable machines strolling around carrying bite force up to 235 pounds will target and mercilessly maul live meat. Take a trip with me down memory lane and be educated about these ticking time bombs and their explosive history. Browse the archives and read columnist Grace Virtue’s highlights in January 2014, as well as several reports subsequently. Adults are on their menu as well!

My whinge is not confined to pit bulls. Any untied, unattended dog proves a danger to the unprepared, unsuspecting passerby. What’s so hard in legislating that owners tie their dogs and properly fence their homes? And if and when those devils escape their masters’ nooses, the masters are slapped with a fine so heavy they will not fail to keep them on an unbreakable leash. A fine that is payable to the victim that will compensate for the trauma, plus medical expenses. I’m not talking about grocery and Band-Aid “tupence”!

The reality is, however, you can’t set a price on trauma and blighted future.

An article in the Dallas Morning News on August 12, 2016, under the headline ‘Dallas police make first dog bite arrest, saying woman’s pit bull attacked twice in a month’ is a reminder that our legislators are all “bark and no bite”.

Chris Billy Leslie

Flamstead Garden District

onlychris28@yahoo.com