Attack Dogs

* Being attacked by a large animal is our worst childhood nightmare. Yet the possibility of a dog attack like the one that killed Diane Whipple in San Francisco (Jan. 30-31) exists every day in my neighborhood. A neighbor’s Rottweiler and a very large mixed-breed dog are caged all day in a small condo patio. The owner never walks them. The dogs seem angry and vicious. They bark incessantly and throw themselves against the gate. So far they have never managed to get out of their confined area. We fear that if they did they would attack and maim anyone who happened to be around. Would it be possible to catch them if they got loose? Our condo association can fine the owners or the animal regulation department can put a bark collar on them, but that does not reduce the danger to the children playing outside.

I couldn’t keep a lion or tiger in my patio. There are laws against large cats as pets. Then why are there no safeguards against dogs that are just as large and can be just as dangerous? Does someone have to die first?

LUCILLE GORENBERG

Dana Point

* A woman is brutally killed in San Francisco, home of criminal rights. The killer is immediately captured. Despite the fact he suffers from a low IQ and was abused as a youngster, he is summarily executed by lethal injection, without even so much as a trial. No one raises a voice in protest at this obvious unfairness, or argues that by killing the killer we stoop to his level.

Then San Franciscans begin to worry openly about the threat of government interference in their constitutional right to bear . . . dogs (Jan. 30). The world has turned upside down.

BARRY CARLTON

El Cajon