I choked back my tears just a little while ago for a terrible situation that's unfolding in Effingham.  I don't know the family, but as a mother of a dog and a girl who will turn 5 in 2 weeks, I know the love of a parent...the innocence of a child...and the guilt that can be held by a person responsible for a dog that unexpectedly bites someone.

I was told that a 5 year old boy was attacked by a neighbor friend's pitbull this morning while playing at that friend's house.  The boy's face was the target.  He had to be airlifted to the hospital.  I don't know anything else right now.  I pray...and I ask you to pray...first and foremost for him to live.  Writing that makes me cry again, because those parents just can't lose their little boy, because I can't stand the thought of that.  Everybody involved will need healing hands and thoughts and words.  Please offer what you can...

I have a dog - my beloved Bailey - who's a half-basset hound/half-spitz mix.  He's nearly 17.  When we first moved to Savannah, it was into a garage apartment in Ardsley Park.  I shared the yard with the homeowner/landlord, with it divided only by a short white fence.  One day, while I was inside napping, or at work (I don't remember), Bailey bit the ankle of the landlord's teenaged daughter.  The details escape me as to whether she had stepped into "his" yard, or he into hers.  It was a minor bite physically... but I have carried guilt and remorse about that bite ever since.  I can't imagine having to experience what that dog's family is going through.

I hope that tomorrow morning we'll be able to tell you that the boy is going to make it.  I really do. 

Right now I feel like I just want to hug him and his family and I don't even know them.  Lord, please let them be okay...