Why we look at animals - Are we Predators or Prey?

There can be various understandings on why we may look at animals I have included a list below of many different ways and reasons of why we do.

Culture
Religion
Food
Survival
Knowledge
Understanding
Companionship
Friendship
Loyalty
Emotions
Strength
Status
Farming
Money
Trade

and the list goes on..

But the first thing that comes to my mind out of it all are two main things food and friendship. We have all herd of the term 'A man's best friend' which mainly relates to a dog and his loyalty to a man but how can we see a dog as a friend an animal which shows emotion, friendship, loyalty and protects you while others may see an animal such as this as food?

Yes it may seem wrong and it may seem strange and I myself would never consider a dog being used as food and would never even think about eating an animal such as dog but the one thing that people would consider before they even think about a dogs emotion or feeling is there will to survive. Many people believe that eating certain animals are wrong but if you were to put yourself into a jungle an area full of predators any animal which is wild would not think twice before they would try to attack you since they need to feed themselves and there young.

Yes we do not live in the wild but what is it that makes us think eating certain animals are wrong? I believe its the simple fact of human contact if an animal is exposed to human contact that animal could become part of your life it creates an understanding between both human and animal and this relationship becomes so strong that our emotions and feelings for an animal grows the more time we spend with a particular animal but if you were to communicate with a tribe that may live in the Amazon Jungle they would not understand it the same way we do because for them any food is vital for them to survive.

Think about it if all we had in this world were animals and humans and you had the choice of killing any animal to be used as food to survive or not killing an animal which will result in your children not being fed which will result to death ...which would you choose?

The outcome ...we are made as both predators and prey we are generalists we adapt to survive no matter what the situation but sometimes adapting to something to much can be our biggest downfall.