Even though I grew up in suburbia, somewhere along the line I was instilled with a farmer's attitude about animals and caution about becoming emotionally attached to them. Not only do I not feel emotion emanating from them, I feel little emotion towards them other than the pleasure or misery they bring to humans. I realize that I am in the very extreme minority, so by bringing it up I was more making fun of myself and stirring that pot.
I remember when I was about 12 I came home from school to learn that our schnauzer had been killed by a car. My mom was in tears, and I cried for a grand total of about 15 seconds before I thought to myself, "why am I crying? It's only a dog, and we'll just go and get a new one like we did when the last one died." As soon as the new dog was there in a couple days, the old one was out of sight and mind for me.
So for whatever reason I always stop myself short of attaching human emotion to any animal. Even in household pets, I see a beast where others see a friend.
I've no doubt that among mammals, at some very basic level, they experience something akin to emotion on a wide spectrum ranging from the great apes down to a mole, and therefore it is natural for human beings to acknowledge and address a given animal's place on that spectrum. I've just never looked into the eye of a horse and seen anything but a blank trainable beast staring back at me.
