These headlines only work if you are stuck in a behaviouralist view of biology where all animals behave essentially like dumb robots. It was a common view in academia until the 1950s and even later in psychiatry. These days things are much better. No serious animal cognition researcher today should be surprised by rats or mice having imaginations.
I find it interesting how we can be so aware of how dogs and cats are living being who experience life and should be protected, but at the same time, we ignore that cows, chickens, pigs, etc... all have those same experiences.
We end up caring about dogs and cats, while paying for the other animals to be killed and torn apart. If the same happened to dogs, people would become violent.
It would be nice if people held consistent moral beliefs.
"I care about what I like" is a consistent moral belief. The issue is that people don't realize that that is thier belief and create anlternative beliefs which sound better to them which then become inconsistent.
