Dear Editor,

This week we found an unsigned letter someone put in our mailbox:

“On several occasions I have passed your house to see your dog chained up with the doghouse turned over and no food. The next time I pass your home and your pet is not better taken care of, I am calling the police dept. and humane shelter and report you for abuse of an animal.”

Since we have no idea who wrote the letter, the only way we can respond is to put this in the newspaper and hope the author will see it.

We would like you to know that we feed our dog every day, twice a day. In fact, he consumes a 20-pound bag of dog food every week. Our vet even says that our dog is larger and heavier than he should be. If you are seeing that his food bowl is empty it’s probably because he dumps the food out of it just before he eats.

We do keep him on a cable, not a chain, and this is to keep him from the highway and from bothering the neighbors. If you would like to report any dog to the humane society, maybe you should start with the ones that are constantly roaming our neighborhood and dumping everyone’s trash cans over to rummage for food. Just ask any of the neighbors.

About his doghouse, it is lightweight and plastic, and he overturns it on a daily basis because he likes to play with it.

The bigger the dog, the bigger their toys are.

If you should have any further misconceptions in the future, we would prefer you just call us at 280-3722 instead of putting a note in our mailbox, which is a federal offense, by the way.

— Donna Calhoun, Clanton