In response to your story "Boy is savaged", how sad it is that our society and your newspaper take such an instant and emotive reaction to this situation (The Argus, October 5).

Reading your article, it appears that the unfortunate young lad was wandering unsupervised and opening closed doors in a strange house.

Surely in your own home you would not expect a visitor to be opening doors uninvited?

The lady who owned the dog, it says in your article, had taken the precaution of shutting the dog away, yet due to the boy not being supervised this accident has happened.

Does the boy's mother not have some duty of care or when we enter someone else's property, do they somehow become totally responsible for us and our safety?

I know I am in danger of sounding like Victor Meldrew but in my day parents took responsibility for controlling and supervising their children.

Now, due to an apparent lack of supervision, a child has been bitten, a family may lose their pet and the community may lose a childminder.

The young boy has been bitten but, thank goodness, he will survive. Yet the first reaction of society seems to be to want to kill the dog for making a mistake.

How sad that there are no longer accidents today. Society, it appears, must find someone to pillory, blame and punish.

-David Madden, Horsham