My interest in treating animals with compassion is a side effect of my interest in helping people live more consciously. I don't consider myself an animal rights activist by any stretch. However, the way we treat animals as a society is highly unconscious and incongruent right now, so it becomes an obvious target for helping people make more conscious choices.
Treating dogs like man's best friends and pigs like man's worse enemy seems nonsensical to me. I should be free to take an axe to the dog next door, especially if it looks tasty.