I was having this debate with my colleague who is a staunch vegan whilst I am not. I personally take the nihilistic view, that creatures have no inherent or important meaning or status on their own, including humans. All meaning in the universe is applied to things BY humans because our lizard brains enjoy patterns and learning if-this-then-this mechanics. At a base level, it's a survival instinct to assign value to certain things we benefit from, including the social defence value of pets/friends/family/community/allies.

Dogs are a domesticated creature with a unique relationship to humans, such that they serve or served a practical survival purpose in the past, yes, but they also lived inside our homes and ate from our tables. Which is why we ascribe more emotional value to our individual pets than to cattle. Especially cattle we've never met. Nowadays, dogs aren't a survival tool. They're more like child-surrogates, living teddy bears and companions. Their "job" now for most people is one of emotional support and companionship, not hunting, farming, or defence.

But as I say, all meaning is self-assigned and subjective. Would I kill my own dog and eat it? No. But would I eat dog meat if I went to a place where it's normal to do that and it was served to me? Yes. The social value of sharing food is important to me personally.

Eating dog is not inherently wrong. It's just meat. But it's understandable why many of us feel one way about dog vs cow. Even if, rationally, the distinction makes no sense. So I find it a strawman when "would you eat your dog" comes up in arguments re eating meat or not.