[ultrarunner]

It's already happening. A story about mistreatment of a dog garners reactions like "how can someone act like that to a fur-baby". Same action toward a person and it's elided over as baseline expected violence. By the same token, quasi-deification of animals has happened for a very long time, and all it takes is a mutation of this idea to spread across popular culture.

[account42]

That's just because dogs and other pets are used as ersatz babies and are thus afforded the the same level of moral outrage when harmed. We accept base violence against adults but not against small children.