Editor, Times-Union: I am writing to you because of an incident that happened May 21 in Silver Lake. A dog attacked my son. Not BIT but ATTACKED. He sustained 20 bites; they stitched two different ones with a total of seven stitches, then he had three of them that had surgical tape put on them to keep them closed. The rest were left open. He did nothing to provoke this dog in any way. You ask how do I know this? Because I was there and was bitten once while I was trying to keep my son from the dog. The dog was ordered put down. The doctors said since the dog was being sacrificed then we should send it to the state lab to be tested since the dog was an outside dog and had not received shots.
When I called and talked with the person in charge of picking up the dog about having this done, the first thing out of his mouth was "I was bitten by a dog so many times ..." I do not remember the amount he said because by this time I was mad and did not care about his bites. I cared about my son's and mine. Then he proceeded to tell me that if the dog was still alive in 10 or 11 days, there was no reason to put the dog down and that there has not been a case of rabies in the last decade. Let me tell you all something. Until you are put in a position where your child is being attacked by a dog (and I never want anyone to be put in that position ever), and you are fighting with everything to stop this and you can't, you will never know how it feels to not be able to save your child. I never felt so helpless in my whole life. I feel like I let my child down because I could not protect him from this.
The only thing I wanted from them is a paper saying this dog is 100 percent free of rabies or anything else that could harm my son or me. I know in my head the chances of getting rabies is next to impossible, but that does not help assure me that I have not put my son's life or my own in danger because I could not save him from this incident. I think you need to learn how to deal with the public and learn to keep your mouth shut over incidents that have happened to you because they are in no way comforting to the victims. I am sorry if you think I am being unreasonable or that I am overreacting, but you have no idea how I feel or what I am going through as a parent. I hope you never have to actually know how this feels.
Angela Fulton Silver Lake
Kind Gesture
Editor, Times-Union: On May 31st, as my family and I made the drive to bury my great-grandfather, I saw something that touched me, as well as other family members. As we made our way down County Farm Road many people, some reluctantly and some not at all, pulled their cars over. But one man did something we have never seen before. This man pulled his car over, got out, and through the rain stood with his hand placed over his heart. He didn't know that the person who had passed was 84 years old and that several generations of his family were following him to his final resting place. It didn't seem to matter to him and the sight brought even more tears to our eyes. I am grateful to this stranger for the kind gesture. Whether or not he will read this, I want to thank him. So on behalf of my family and myself, "Thank you, kind sir, for showing your respect and for giving us all something to think about."
