Writing Exercise for Week 4 – Writing, Rhetoric & Persuasion

Write: a letter to the editor of one of the state or nation newspapers on an issue of your choice. In your letter, use one or more of the rhetorical devices described in the lecture. Remember, your main goal will be to persuade others to agree with your position.

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Dear Sir/Madam,

You recently aired an article about a dog attacking a jogger (27/5/13).  This isn't the first time you've aired articles about dog attacks, and no doubt won't be the last as I respect the fact that they do happen.

I understand your need to inform the public, but would greatly appreciate it if you include a footnote that not all bull breeds are attack dogs.  If you feel the need to disagree with me, let me first share a few facts with you.

During the years 2010 – 2011, there have admittedly been 6,847 dog attacks, but only 3,017 humans were attacked.  Yes, statistics show that often more than one dog will attack humans and in fact, this equates to 1.3 dogs per attack. (Council reports of dog attacks in NSW, March '12, p.11).  But my point is this.  Not all the dog attacks have been caused by American Bulldogs.  Other breeds have been involved, on record there's even a toy fox terrier involved in one attack.  Admittedly, the worst ones for attacks have been the Staffordshire Bull Terrier with their total for the abovementioned years being 650 (Council report, p. 13).

My argument is this though:  It's not the breeds themselves that are dangerous, it's the way they are handled by their owners.  If you were to look into many of the attacks, they are caused by dogs who have been abused in the past, starved, neglected or treated in such a way that certain things will trigger them to attack, be it a man walking or jogging past, a senior with a walking stick or a pram with a squeaky wheel.  They can't help if things like these can trigger memories.  The man walking or jogging could look exactly like the person that makes him run around a fight ring inciting the poor dog to fight another dog despite not wanting to.  The senior with the walking stick could remind him of the woman who beat him every day with a cane because he failed to obey basic commands.  The squeaky wheel could remind a dog of a family who leaves him chained up in the backyard because they've got more time for their newborn and no time for him.  All these things could anger and frustrate a dog and cause them to do things that normally they wouldn't do.  It's their cry for help and yet we punish them and give them a bad name for something that is purely the fault of humans.

Dogs, like other animals, are here to be loyal to us, depend on us, try to please us in so many ways, and yet we take them for granted and abuse them in so many ways when instead, we should be respecting their feelings and caring for them.

It's unfair to constantly show articles that show dogs attacking humans that appear to be without warning without first looking into that dog's life and asking questions like "what's the story behind that dog, why did it feel the need to attack".  Rather than punish the dogs involved and incite readers to plead the Government to enforce BSL (breed selective legislation) which will only cause further grief for those owners of bull breeds who DO discipline their dogs in the correct way and have the most perfect house pets   These dogs don't deserve the label they've been given to the few amongst them that are bad tempered BECAUSE of their ill treatment!  How would you like it if you had six children, and one of them kept breaking the law due to anger issues and kept getting locked up, so the government decided that all five of your children are born bad and should be killed!  You wouldn't like it, and you'd know the truth of your one child that has anger issues!  Maybe he's been bullied in school, or dyslexic but hasn't been diagnosed yet.  Problems occur in people's lives as well as in the lives of animals.

Please think before you share another dog attack article.  If you must continue to share it, then how about balancing it out and show that those same breeds are also great 'nanny' dogs and have had a history of being nanny dogs in the United States for over a century, and perhaps using current pets as an example.  Perhaps then people will get less riled up, there'll be less dog haters and fearers, and the Government will be less likely to enforce new unfair laws.

You have the power in your newspaper to change this society.  Please use this power in a positive way.

You're respectfully,

An avid reader of the the Sydney Morning Herald and also a dog lover,
Carol Nemes.