the poor dog had begun to hate its own nature. It no longer needed to be beaten. It was ready to punish itself. At that point it would have been better to shoot it.’ ‘Or to have it fixed.’ ‘Perhaps. But at the deepest level I think it might have preferred being shot. It might have preferred that to the options it was offered: on the one hand, to deny its nature, on the other, to spend the rest of its days padding about the living-room, sighing and sniffing the cat and getting portly.’ ‘Have you always felt this way, David?’ ‘No, not always. Sometimes I have felt just the opposite. That desire
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