Please do not blame the dogs

Why should people who are responsible with their animals have them put to sleep to assuage your concerns? Some people don't have children but do have dogs. That is their choice, mine and my husband's choice as it happens, and our right.

Today it's Rottweilers. Say you get rid of all them in a few years then who's next, bull mastiffs, the English bull terrier, the Staffordshire bull terrier? How about nasty horrible little things like jack russells, bichon frise or west Highland terriers?

Dogs are a result of their environment. There are certain traits that are genetic and, just like people, you get "bad ones" from time to time; what else would you call Myra Hindley, the Krays, Harold Shipman and the Wests to name but a few.

To follow your train of thought would mean that every Shipman, Hindley, West etc in the country would have to be locked up for life, castrated (male and female) or put to death.

You will get no better protector of a child than a Staffie that has been raised in a family environment, no better protector of flocks than a collie raised on a farm, no gentler a donkey ride than a great Dane.

You cannot punish an entire breed because someone was foolish enough to leave a door open so that trained guard/attack dogs could enter the family home without a handler present.

But they would have been grateful for those animals if they had been burgled or attacked because they would have followed their training, even if it meant getting killed to defend their territory against intruders.

L Ford, Telford