The nationwide coverage of the horrific dog attack on Diane Whipple of San Francisco, a former lacrosse player at Penn State, is something I can't get out of my mind.

After the first shock of reading the dreadful account of how two bullmastiffs mauled the victim for five minutes, I began to ask what I hope are some essential questions.

Why would apartment dwellers have two dogs with a combined weight of more than 230 pounds confined there?

Why is there this abiding sick compulsion to have the biggest and most feared dog on the block?

California is one of the leading states in the number of fatal dog attacks. Fifty percent of Americans killed by dogs are under the age of ten.

Many states with capital punishment have excluded hanging and the electric chair because they are deemed to be too "cruel and unusual."

Yet consider this prolonged attack by two massive dogs that left a scene that sickened and appalled even veteran medics and police officers.

The time has come in California and throughout the country to hold pet owners accountable for the actions of their animals. And we need to be especially severe with those who escalate the degree of risk and danger to the rest of us by harboring uncontrollable and dangerous pets.

Punishment of these insensitive and inconsiderate animal owners is the proper redemption of a contract society owes to all human beings: to protect them and guard, if only posthumously, their dignity, by disciplining those who helped bring about hideous ordeals, such as that which occurred to Ms. Whipple in a sixth-floor San Francisco apartment.