Keep your pets at home

Keep your pets at home

EDITOR:

My 25-pound golden doodle dog “Annie” is at my side as I write this.

She has noticed my uproar upon reading the front page article, “Rottweiler was hit by cruiser.” The subtitle said, “the dogs’ owner said they apparently escaped by breaking a hole through the backyard fence”.

As a homeowner for the last 21 years on the city’s West Side, and living next door to a “friendly Rottweiler,” as my neighbor claims, I must speak out, as Annie cannot. I warned her about what happened to Acey, my 7-year-old dog that didn’t see 8, perhaps because her hide was pulled off her bones by a neighbor’s dog “that got through the fence.”

I read your article with interest when I saw Mr. Patoray “holding back” a growling Belle, which did not venture out to Circle K that night at 3 a.m. What harm can two loose Rottweilers do at 3 a.m.? They must have been after someone “snooping around,” as he says.

Mr. Patoray has five 145-pound dogs to guard his property and family. God bless him — the world’s a mess. But when someone doesn’t control 290 pounds of bone-crushing (and perhaps a tad unfriendly dogs) when I go to get my coffee at 3 a.m., I get irritated.

Mr. Patoray is mad because the Youngstown police only spent 30-45 minutes making sure his dogs were safe. That makes as much sense as a guy owning five Rottweilers to uh, uh — oh!

DAVID S. PARKS

Youngstown

Don’t be afraid of mediation

EDITOR:

In your editorial of Sunday, April 6 (“An arbitrator strikes again”) you point out the necessity of a finder-of-fact’s consideration of all the relevant information in rendering a decision. Whether that decision is binding or not, an arbitrator must indeed complete this task as need all who hold the responsibility of resolving disputes in our legal system.

I am concerned that in your final paragraph (“… [the] mediator… goes on to decide other cases…”) you suggest the terms “arbitrator” and “mediator” are synonymous. Given that in Trumbull and Mahoning counties and throughout Ohio an increasing number of families and individuals in a wide variety of disputes are being referred to mediation daily — borrowers and lenders in foreclosure cases being just one example — this distinction is more than simply a matter of semantics.

Parties benefit from this process largely because the neutral helps them develop their own resolution. When those involved in disputes are referred to mediation it is particularly important they understand the responsibility for the outcome remains entirely in their own hands. There is much a mediator needs to consider in providing assistance to parties. What their decision ought to be is not part of the equation.

JOHN POLANSKI

Warren

X The writer is a mediator for Trumbull County Family Court.

Spare us some details

EDITOR:

It was very dismaying to see The Vindicator’s recent wonderful article about the nesting eagles including their exact location, map and all. Why give the site to find them? The article even said, “any type of disturbance around a nest could cause the birds to abandon the site or discourage them from using the nest in the future.”

By all means continue to provide us with interesting articles about our wildlife and their conservation, but please don’t give information that would tell humans how to locate them. We need to preserve our environment, not provide a direct path so that dozens of cars and curious people can disturb them.

BARBARA SPENCER

Youngstown