Today’s letters: Train your dog, avoid injuries to others

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Untrained dogs, broken bones

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Re: Fellow dog owners, train your pet to behave in public. Nov. 30.

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I cannot agree more with Brett Capwell about training your pet to behave in public. I was away on holiday on a Tofino beach Sept. 26 on a  peaceful early evening walk when two racing dogs playing on that beach ran me down. I fell and sustained  a tibial plateau fracture, a broken wrist, and a fracture in my distal clavicle.

Two kind passersby stopped to help and stayed with my husband and me as one called the paramedics on his cell. The owner of the dogs apologized and left the scene.

I spent more than 36 hours in two hospitals on Vancouver Island. On my return to Ottawa, I was assessed in the clinic and sent to Emergency at The Ottawa Hospital to see if orthopaedics could do my surgery. I spent two days there and there was no operating room time available. I was added to the “walking wounded” list for surgery and three weeks after the injury I had my surgery and was discharged.

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Now, two months out, I am finally able to weight bear and walk with a walker. My cast is off and I am slowly regaining strength and mobility in my wrist. I have had excellent care.

If this woman had leashed her dogs, this probably would not have happened. I have lost over two months already and will miss most sports activities this winter and social events events with friends and family.

Please, dog owners, take charge and responsibility for your pets.

Mary Lou Crossan, Ottawa

You can’t do ‘puppy class’ online

In the article about dogs, I think your editor meant “hackles up” rather than “haunches up.” I agree that tight COVID restrictions likely contributed to many missed training opportunities. Online resources simply can’t compete with a well-run puppy class.

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Colleen Rutherford Archer, Deep River

Give a break to rescue dogs

Rescue dogs live horrible and abused lives. When rescued, they have PTSD just like humans do. They react when scared, just like humans do.

I completely agree that people should train their dogs, but maybe don’t post an article like this one on a newspaper site. Have a little compassion for the people who rescue these poor abused babies and are working on it.

Khala Pope, Ottawa

Should CRA be in charge of this?

Re: CRA clawing back $3.2B from suspect COVID-19 aid payments, Nov. 30.

Is anyone relieved that the very people who oversaw the distribution of billions without oversight are now in charge of getting much of it back? Canada Revenue Agency’s Frank Vermaeten and Marc Lemieux admitted “with hindsight that the agency made some mistakes early on in 2020,” the article says.

Ya think? What a revelation. With leadership like this in  government, no wonder the country is in such a sad state.

Jeff Turner, Manotick