Madam, - The hypocrisy surrounding our relationship with animals is deeply embedded. We are capable of becoming emotionally involved with our pet dog while at the same time we support the inhumane treatment of farm animals in a daily act of condonement: eating them. Yet a pet dog would suffer just like a pig or a chicken if it, too, were to be subjected to the routine cruelty of life on the factory farm.
When will people wake up to the fact that farm animals are sentient beings which, like our pets, can and do suffer? What is it that allows us to block out this most obvious truth? Several answers leap into my head - ignorance, apathy, greed - and all of them are equally depressing. - Yours, etc.,
GERRY BOLAND, Animals in Crisis, Keadue, Co Roscommon.