Only mentally fragile and immature people — those who cannot withstand contact with an equal — claim to love animals more than people. Would this “cat lover” show the same tenderness to a shark gliding past in dark waters? Or does his “love” extend only to the dependent and the weak? If so, this is not love, but a need for safety, or a pathological craving to exert control over at least something living.
Sometimes, such animal lovers become zoophiles, animal abusers or even maniacs — especially pedophiles — because they cannot tolerate contact with their equals, causing their accumulated resentment toward the world and their despair to eventually spiral out of control.
Love is possible only between equals; everything else, as in this case, is either a desperate search for safety or terror in the face of another consciousness that may not remain silent.