If anyone here has actually seen a starving animal, then they will know that near the end of its life, it simply won't have the energy or inclination to accept food. From what I see of the pictures, it looks to me as if this animal has reached that stage.

Starving animals (and humans!) need to be fed a bland diet, little and often or else they will suffer terrible intestinal pain, diahorrea and vomiting. A huge plate of rich food would kill them as surely as a bullet in the head.

If this dog had recently been fed well, in the condition it appears to be you'd be able to see the bulk of the food in its stomach. It would also be rolling around the floor in agony or barfing up in a corner.

And as for kibble not being smelly - it may not be to humans, we have pretty poor olofactory skills on the whole - but to a canine schnozz, it's smellable from 40 ft away. We may have 5-10million sensory cells up there, but a dog has 125million. It has to, otherwise we would be able to track criminals and sniff out explosives ourselves. Even a poorly pooch would be able to smell the kibble stuck on a wall 10ft away.

Personally, I don't know which is worse - the obvious suffering of the starved dog for which no-one has an adequate or acceptable explanation, or the not so obvious torture of a starving dog surrounded by smelly food it cannot get to.

Real animals in "art" has always been controversial, but at least Damien Hurst had the decency to put his animals out of their misery.

If this is art, then I know what I like and this isn't it. Give me a nice Pre-Raphaelite any day!

LTS