Dogs are not people, does anyone else find it weird how some seem to equate the two?

[Deep13]

186. "Heartless" is one word.

No, I care about all people, whether industrial or agrarian, Western, Muslim, East Asian, and everyone else. I feel deeply for people who are victimized by privations, cruelty, or natural causes. I want everyone to be able to control his or her own life. I want everyone to have enough to eat and drink, to be able to read, to be free from exploitation, and to be safe from disease.

I'm less concerned about strictly first-world, invented problems like whether or not non-productive, domesticated animals are people. They are not, so it is a non-issue. As a society, we eat, wear, experiment on, and kill as pests a variety of animals. The fact that dog behavior and expression have evolved to be pleasing to humans is merely a survival adaptation that allows them to live among us.

Let's make the hypothetical more interesting than what I previously suggested. You are in a burning building and the fire is growing. Somehow, you see the exit is nearby, but it will only be usable for less than a minute. You have the physical ability to carry a kid or a medium-sized dog out with you. For the purposes of this hypothetical, it is impossible to carry both out at once--too heavy. It is also impossible to reenter the building without both you and whichever you left behind dying within a minute or two.

Which do you grab, the child or the dog.

Any answer that is something other than unqualified desire to rescue the child is either a dishonest attempt to evade the choice or else it reveals you to be a monster.