Mike Dennis breeds dogs: Clever little Jack Russell terriers and gracefully fast Border Collies.
They are very popular and Mike does a fair to middling business with them.
However, until recently dog-breeding was only a sideline for him. Mike is a farmer. Or perhaps we should say, was a farmer.
He farmed 160 acres of lush pasture on the beautiful Isle of Wight where he raised cattle, sheep and pigs. Now, thanks to the double whammy of BSE and foot-and-mouth disease, he is facing ruin.
It is, perhaps, difficult for us "city folk" to contemplate the trauma of a man with three sons, all of whom want to carry on farming, watching his life's work go up in smoke.
But what is this crisis all about? Does anybody know? It is a virulent disease affecting cloven-hoof animals.
It does not affect humans so why are we having to slaughter every animal in the UK, healthy or otherwise?
We know that in Argentina and South Africa foot-and-mouth has been rampant for years and yet meat gets exported to Britain.
-Ian Parsons, Littlehampton Road, Worthing
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