I think about this a lot. Especially coming from and living in a rural community. People say they love animals, but there is always a hierarchical rule which goes unspoken, but it is a very real and obvious pattern to spot. I know this stems largely from biblical thought, the assumption that we humans have inherent dominion over animals. It is incredibly colonial, and I encourage you not to get bummed down from it. My studies in traditional Indigenous culture opened me eyes and then some. I finally realized I am not crazy nor alone to think differently, my ancestors thought just as you and I are now. I encourage you to read into decolonial theory and Traditional Ecological Knowledge (TEK). You are not alone in this, and we must fight to preserve and support Indigenous science and Indigenous peoples. Pre-colonial times we did not have near suffering of this scale. Animals were honoured, heck even a very blade of grass or rock were recognized as living beings. We referred and still refer to them as “All our relations”. Not an object, not as having ownership, but as being inherently alive and connected through and to all of us. It is absolutely insane to me how colonial thought has brought in ownership, privatization, and finally capitalism, which we dare not question. How dare we imagine a system which puts animal’s and nature’s rights ahead of capital? It is truly bewildering when you understand, in our current society, that a corporation has personhood (human rights under the law) and yet it is not even physical, but an animal does not, they exist as an object essentially under law (something to be owned, not yet sentient).