The base difference is that dogs evolved side by side with our species to develop and return emotional bonding and feedback with humans.
All other animals we managed to domesticate, at best, tolerate us or fear us. Cute little photos of cows and pigs enjoying being hugged and petted are exceptions, not norm.
I’ve been trying to understand, for years, what happened to turn dogs and cats food in asian countries (beside famines, hence desperation) but every single source I was ever able to find always gets muddled in exotheric notions of ”medicinal" use or some other folklore high tale.
For context: in Vietnam, cat meat is often served as being “little tiger”.
To the extent of my knowledge, the rest of the world never needed to wrap an animal in an exotheric tale to declare it as potential food.
This is an interesting angle. Makes me wonder, do we have a moral duty to reciprocate love and loyalty, or the potential for it? And if not, what basis can there be for treatment of human beings?
Interesting question from a chicken.
My concern is not morality and neither is that the issue here.
The animals we call farm animals today came from what are considered prey animals and the process of domestication was essentialy a process of reducing fear and wariness towards our species.
Dogs came to be from an apex predator that, we speculate, found advantageous to actively associate with our species for mutual benefit.
Different origins produced different outcomes.
I think there is a much easier explanation. People keep rabbits and guinea pigs as pets. They are much more of a “prey animal” than a wild hog, for example.
Humans simply find rabbits, dogs and cats more aesthetically pleasing / cute. That’s the whole secret to it. Some animals are liked by humans and get a bare minimum of compassion and some don’t. And that’s the biggest factor in our decision of which animals deserve to rot away in their own filth until slaughtered and which can enter our homes as “entertainers”.
