To the editor: A co-worker was sharing her loose neighborhood dog story with me. While walking her dog one morning a loose neighborhood dog came charging toward her and her dog. Lucky for my co-worker, the owner of the loose dog called his dog and the dog retrieved. I have been in the same situation many times with loose roaming neighborhoods dogs. It is very scary especially when the loose dog comes charging at you and attacks you or your dog. If people are so concerned about bear attacks then why do they open their doors and let the dog out with not one concern that a bear, deer or any other critter could be close by? You know darn well the dog is going to chase after the bear, deer or what ever. I felt the need to explain to my co-worker that if bears were as dangerous as some people (mostly hunters to justify a hunt) make them out to be then more bear attacks would be happening, but they are not. Think about it. If every time a person encountered a bear and that encounter became an attack, we would be hearing about bear attacks on a daily, weekly or monthly basis, but that is not happening. If that were the case I would have been killed or mauled 15 years ago because when I moved to Hewitt I used to encounter bears morning, noon and night. At first I was scared but then noticed when I encountered a bear the bear would walk or run away from me. I came to realize that if a bear wanted me I’d be dead due to the fact a bear can run up to 35 miles per hour. And did you know a bear can climb a tree as fast as a squirrel? The point I am making here is your chances of being attacked by a loose roaming neighborhood dog is more likely to happen than being attacked by a roaming neighborhood garbage bear. I fear unpredictable loose neighborhood dogs more than I fear black bears. By the way, where is this growing population of bears? I haven’t seen a bear in the neighborhood or while hiking in over two years. Lily DeMarco Hewitt