In Isolating Times, Can Robo-Pets Provide Comfort?
When Linda Spangler asked her mother, in a video chat, what she would like as gift for her 92nd birthday, the response came promptly. “I’d like a dog,” Charlene Spangler said. “Is Wolfgang dead?” Wolfgang, a family dachshund, had indeed died long ago; so had all his successors. Ms. Spangler, who lives in a dementia…