Letter: Pining dogs
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Your support makes all the difference.Sir: Brendan Halpin (letter, 3 January) appears to think quarantine is justified on the grounds that dogs cannot appreciate time, "especially a future duration of six months". Nor, of course, can babies or imbeciles, but that does not give us licence to place them in solitary confinement.
He confuses a concept with a felt experience. An animal may have no concept of next week or next June, but it has the experience of present time - in the case of quarantine, a seemingly interminable present deprived of its customary human or animal companions and normal activities.
Dr RAY RACY
Bristol
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