With respect to your article the Gazette, Saturday, Aug. 28, titled ‘A dog-gone attack’, how is this news and could you possibly make a title any more misleading? This woman was in no way shape or form attacked by a dog. She was knocked over by a dog that jumped at her. She was not bitten, mauled or even scratched by the dog. The injuries she sustained were due to a fall. I feel sorry for the woman, but how is this news? Yes, the dog owner was callous and irresponsible for not providing greater assistance to the woman but if every time someone was a jerk you carried a story, the paper would be a thousand pages long, twice a week. Can I also expect to see the Gazette referring to breezes as tornados and drizzle as hurricanes?
Dogs take a bad enough rap from those people who have a phobia or simply dislike animals. A title like this does an extreme disservice to them. The dog should have been under control, the owner should have been responsible, the woman got a scare and had to take Advil – none of it should have happened but as for whether this is news – no. Please consider your words and the consequences of those words before printing them. More stories like this and you will have people calling in to discuss such other crises such as being cut off in traffic or getting an ingrown toenail.
Kristin Toms, St. Albert
