SIR - The recent attacks on children by dogs have been horrific and the behaviour of the dogs and their owners is inexcusable, but we cannot start a lynch party for certain breeds of dogs when it is clearly the owners who are in the wrong.

It is too easy for someone with no knowledge of how to care for it, to buy a dog and there is no law to say they should have public liability insurance.

If there were tighter restrictions on breeding we would cut down on the ease of purchase and the breeders who are selling dogs indiscriminately.

To destroy a dog that has bitten and merely fine the owner is not targeting the correct criminal. The owner is responsible and should have to pay a more severe penalty.

A dog can only respond to its surroundings. If it is kept on high-energy food and not given boundaries it can become a tearaway teenager.

How can we define aggressive breed'? We should be targeting individual dogs not breeds and above all the owners, who are the most guilty of all.

Barbara Sykes (Member of the Institute of Professional Dog Trainers), Golcar Farm, Spring Lane, Bingley