It’s been said over and over, by thousands and thousands, that when a dog goes bad, it’s not the dog’s fault. It’s a people problem.

Nowhere is that more true than in Manchester, where the 30-year-old owner of a 120-pound pit bull advised his family to keep the dog locked behind a closed door because the aggressive dog couldn’t be trusted.

The dog was so feared that this father made sure his 12-year-old son knew how to load and fire a shotgun in case the boy needed to defend the family from this pet.

On Wednesday, the dog got loose and attacked a smaller dog in the house, killing the animal. Then, the pit bull turned on a young boy living there.

Two adults — the boy’s grandmother and a family friend — tried to intervene and the dog mauled them, too.

If not for 12-year-old Brandon Bailie’s accurate aim, Kennebec County Sheriff Randy Liberty said the boy’s 68-year-old grandmother could have been killed. Liberty told the Bangor Daily News the dog attack was one of the worst he had seen.

Two dogs are dead and three people are seriously injured.

The pit bull may have been the attacker, but the attack is most clearly the fault of the dog’s human owner.

Unfortunately, that man is not the lone example of irresponsible pet ownership.

What happened in the Bailie house this week is a frightening example of what can happen when someone brings a dog into a home and fails to train the animal to co-exist with people.

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Shoreline residents of Cherry Pond in Greene oppose a plan to expand parking and install boat access to the Androscoggin River because they don’t want unruly visitors drinking alcohol and leaving trash at the beach. The thing is, there already are unruly people drinking, building fires and trashing this little pond.

If the FPL Energy Maine Hydro proposal is approved, the beach will have established hours of use and will be more regularly patrolled.

So, instead of trash and noise, residents may actually find they enjoy the clean and quiet.

We urge the Greene Planning Board to approve the FPL plan, not because it’s a federal regulation for the utility to create recreational areas on property it leases, but because the plan provides responsible access to a public waterway.

There are too few boat access points along the river north of the Twin Cities, with the most popular launch several miles upriver at Twin Bridges.

The Androscoggin is evolving into a gem and could become a real destination for recreational users if only it were easier to access.

The Cherry Pond project provides easy river access, with improved facilities and the promise of greater security.

It’s a good plan.

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Oak Hill High School senior Chris Jones is a wildly successful product of former Gov. Angus King’s laptop program for Maine’s students.

The 17-year-old is in the process of developing a Web business and has crafted software that has caught Apple’s corporate eye. Jones said his interest in technology was launched when he got his laptop as a seventh-grader at Litchfield’s Carrie Ricker Middle School.

Today, this young entrepreneur provides computer training and is invited to speak at technology conferences.

King told the Sun Journal that he used to talk about the next Bill Gates showing up in Maine because we have given him (or her) the opportunity of exploration through the laptop program. Chris Jones, King said, “bears this out.”

Bill Gates? Meet Chris Jones.

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The opinions expressed in this column reflect the views of the ownership and editorial board.