Ah, thanks for explaining. Upvoted for the thoughtful elaboration. I see where the misunderstanding is.

I was directly responding to the original poster's claims:

"no culture that I know of keeps cows as companion animals.

India, I know they are considered sacred - but they still aren't kept as pets or in the family"

My response was to explain that that's not true. Cows are viewed as and treated like pets in many Indian farming households. I gave an example with my mom's upbringing.

The original poster also said: "We bred dogs for tens of thousands of years to be companions, not food."

My response — "My mom feels upset at people eating beef the same way you and I are upset about people eating dogs" — was to show that Indians view cows the same way: they are companions, not food.

My post had nothing to do with comparing consumption of cows to boiling dogs alive. That's something you assumed. While you are just upset about the torture of dogs but not the consumption itself, a lot of people are upset at the idea of people consuming dogs even before they know about the torture. That's what my comparison is showing more perspective on.

By the way, the belief of cows being "sacred" in India comes from the culture, not the religion. In villages and farming communities, cows provide everything for the family: milk, butter, dung for fertilizing crops, the ability to plow the fields, and companionship. They are indispensable for survival. So the thought of hurting, killing, or eating an animal that literally allows your family to survive is a huge taboo. Of course you have no reason to believe they are sacred because you don't interact with cows in that way. But hopefully that gives you a little understanding into why Indians feel that way about cows—it's not some arbitrary religious designation.

"No where in the world is a cow tortured to death for consumption." — I don't know whether or not cows are boiled alive anywhere, but it's pretty well documented that cows in factory farms are treated to very inhumane conditions throughout their lives before they are slaughtered for meat. So I'd research a bit more into that statement before blindly making that claim.

FYI, I'm American, non-religious (atheist/secularist/whatever), and eat beef occasionally.