Selfish, lazy dog owners who can't be bothered to correct their dog’s behaviour are everywhere. Day and night, dogs bark incessantly and the owners just don't care.

It's not really my style, but you can lodge a complaint with the council and they will contact the owner.  If the owner doesn't do something about it they can be fined.

A friendly word of concern or polite note in the letterbox seems to be treated with contempt, so maybe that is the last resort for us...

- Paul Kilshaw, Rathmines 

YES, I would also like to respond to the problem of barking dogs.

We live in Bonnells Bay and behind our home there are two small dogs where the owners also go to work five or more days per week, and the dogs bark at the smallest of noises.

I have been overseas for five weeks and was hoping that when I returned it would've changed. But, no.

So I am hoping that our these people read this letter and do something about it, otherwise I will contact council or the RSPCA.

- Annelies Cubis, Bonnells Bay

LAST year, a dear friend of mine drove down a bush track off the Wangi-­to-Toronto road; a track strewn with illegally dumped rubbish for 100 metres or more.

There she took her life.

When I was told by council that the site is Aboriginal land, I attempted to communicate with the Biraban Local Aboriginal Land Council. I offered to work with them to clean up the site and support them to find ways to prevent such dumping continuing.

None of my communications (email, phone, snail mail) were acknowledged. Such abuse of the land seems at odds with what I understand to be the love of the land that Aboriginal people have.

My offer still stands if anyone cares to contact me.

- Barbara Hicks, Rathmines

DO we need political campaigns? Do we learn anything we don’t already know? Who needs their letterbox chocked with self-promoting pamphlets and the TV swamped with misleading promotions? If politicians can’t get their message of what they are all about out to us in three years, then they aren’t going to do it in three weeks. No campaigns, no need for political donations.

- Allan Earl, Thornton

REPORTS of schools being over-crowded past maximum capacity make interesting reading when compared to class numbers from the past.

Acceptable numbers over 50 years ago ranged between 40 to 45 students per class, often in demountables made of asbestos, uninsulated  and without air-conditioning. 

Have students of today become soft? Or are the teachers not old enough to remember how it used to be with larger classes and no climate control? My mind goes back to the movie Kindergarten Cop, where Arnie says: “Toughen up, you don't need your mummies to wipe your noses”. Maybe Arnold was speaking for the rest of the world.

- Carl Stevenson, Dora Creek

WHY is it that the crime rate among politicians seems to be higher than that of the general public?

- Tom Edwards, Wangi Wangi

WHILE the Liberals look down on Sam Dastyari with mock disgust, it’s apparently OK for Julie Bishop, Warren Truss and George Brandis to have a 2012 trip to China paid by the Communist Party Of China.

- Richard Ryan, Summerland Point