“If you live to be 100 I want to live to be 100 minus one day so I would never live without you,” Winnie-the-Pooh says to Christopher Robin.

How the British love their animals. Those cuddly bears, ponies and dogs that show total devotion to their owners. We are the only country that spends more time debating foxhunting than terrorism (blame Fantastic Mr Fox), where Beatrix Potter stops us putting Flopsy, Mopsy, Cottontail and Peter into our stews and where Black Beauty puts us off our steak au cheval.

The British obsession with pets has always seemed insane, the RSPCA has more rights to take away abused animals than social workers have to intervene with at-risk babies. Owners feed their cats on gourmet food that costs twice as much as their children's fishfingers and there are more floodlit walkways for hedgehogs than for pensioners.

So my Germanic side (from a grandmother) has always appreciated the no-nonsense Teutonic approach to animals. Until Knut. Berlin Zoo's polar bear is different. The Germans can't just dump him because the economic climate has become a little chilly. They have squeezed everything they can out of this poor creature.

The zoo has turned Knut into the Britney Spears of the animal world, forcing him to gyrate twice a day in front of crowds until he became addicted to an audience and would howl when taken away from the cameras. They put him on the front cover of Vanity Fair, with his hair blown dry and pressed his image on coins and stamps. He even became the Government's environment mascot. Now just because he is getting a little plump, ungainly and erratic, in other words turning into a hormonal adolescent, they have decided that he is too expensive to keep and they want to sell him.

Knut was born in captivity and his mother rejected him. His twin died at four hours old. Rescued by his keeper, Thomas Dorflein, who then died of a heart attack, his life has been traumatic enough. Now he is to be uprooted. The Germans owe this bear a debt. He has increased attendance at the zoo by 30 per cent, raising €5 million.

This doesn't meant that I've suddenly learnt to love my children's Russian hamsters, or that I will now give a tenth of my earnings to a donkey sanctuary. But while animals don't have rights, humans have responsibilities towards them, especially those that we keep captive.

The British are right to believe that a country should be judged on how it treats its furry friends. The Germans must use the money that Knut has raised to build him a love den that he can share with a female polar bear for the rest of his life.

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