A note to parents:

Leaving your young, unsupervised children in the front yard with a dog may be -- may be -- marginally better than leaving them completely alone. 

But only if said children can control said dog!

A dog that can and will drag said children into the street is a very very bad idea.  Yes, a big dog can equal protection for your child, but only if it's trained.  Otherwise, it's just a different type of hazard.

Moral?  Be a friggin' parent and watch your kids yourself.

Morons!

ETA:  Just a bit of explanation.

I took my puppies for a walk yesterday afternoon.  They were very well behaved -- especially for puppies who only meet new people rarely -- and were on leashes.  We were walking on the left side of the road, on the sidewalk, facing the oncoming traffic. (You know, exactly like you're supposed to do.)  On the right side of the road, two little girls were in their front yard with their dog.  He's huge.  Both girls could easily ride him as a pony at the same time and give him no problems.  He, too, was leashed, but the leash was in the hand of the smaller girl.  I doubt either is older than maybe second grade, and I doubt the younger is even in kindergarten.  He saw my girls and went nuts to come meet them.  Charging out of the yard he dragged the smaller girl out into the road and finally pulled the leash out of her hand.  She started crying.

Now, aside from the fact that the dog was a danger to himself, dashing across the road like that, the fact that the child was obviously supposed to be 'in charge' of him, and had absolutely no way of controlling him, was just... mind numbingly bone-headed.  Had a car been coming, both could have been seriously hurt.  Had she held on a second longer, she would have fallen head first and no doubt ended up with scraped knees and possibly elbows and face.  And she was obviously upset that he got away. 

The icing on the cake was the fact that I was the only adult in sight, and nobody came out of the house while I attempted to extract myself and my pups from his exuberant greeting.  I don't even know for sure if that's their house, as I've seen them playing elsewhere before.