Nonsense. That is 100% specific to your culture. In a lot of places dogs are livestock. In others people revile you for eating beef. Or pork.
A quick google search turns up a Daily Mail article; a video titled "Skinned alive in China" that does not, in fact, show any animals being skinned alive; and other similarly dubious articles.
Even beyond that, the person you were replying to has a point: dogs being raised as livestock is one thing, but the systematic torture they endure in countries like China, South Korea and Vietnam is an entirely different (and wholly deplorable) point altogether. In the rare event that a factory is discovered in the US torturing and abusing livestock, the public outcry is usually enough to shut that facility down and cut off their supply chain. In places like Vietnam (as the article describes) it's merely brushed off as a shameful-yet-ultimately-permissible tradition.
> Since 2009,[58] Yulin, Guangxi has held an annual festival of eating dog meat. This purportedly celebrates the summer solstice, however, in 2014, the municipal government published a statement that the festival is not a cultural tradition, rather, a commercial event held by restaurants and the public.[59] Various dog meat dishes (and more recently, cats) are eaten, washed down by lychees wine. The festival in 2011 spanned 10 days, during which 15,000 dogs were consumed.[60] Estimates of the number of dogs eaten during the festival range between 10[46][61] and 15 thousand.[62] Festival organisers say that only dogs bred specifically for consumption are used, however, there are claims that some of the dogs purchased for slaughter and consumption are strays or stolen pets, as evidenced by their wearing collars.[45] Some of the dogs eaten at the festival are burnt or boiled alive[63] and there are reports that the dogs are sometimes clubbed[46] or beaten to death in the belief that the increased adrenalin circulating in the dog's body adds to the flavour of the meat.[45]
> Opponents of dog meat consumption in South Korea are critical of the eating of dog meat, as some dogs are beaten, burnt or hanged to make their meat more tender.[104]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dog_meat_consumption_in_South_...
> The controversy over dog meat consumption often centers on the slaughtering methods employed, which include electrocution, strangulation by hanging, and physically beating the dog to death. Some dogs are still alive when they are blow-torched or thrown into boiling water to remove their fur.[20]
http://askakorean.blogspot.co.uk/2009/08/dog-its-whats-for-d...
> Q: Is it true that the dogs are tortured before they are killed? > A: Again, because Livestock Processing Act does not cover dog meat, there is no restriction about how to kill a dog for meat. At the meat market, the need to slaughter the dogs quickly usually means dogs are electrocuted, similar to cattle. However, especially in rural areas where people slaughter dogs to cook and eat on their own, the common method is to hang the dog and beat it to death, in an attempt to tenderize the meat. (This, however, may be counterproductive; while beating the meat does tenderize it, an animal that dies in a stressed state generally produces tougher and less tasty meat.) A figurative expression in Korean for a severe beating is “like beating a dog on bok day.”
"New research shows babies have a handle on the meaning of different dog barks – despite little or no previous exposure to dogs."
https://news.byu.edu/news/babies-understand-dog-speak-byu-st...
I've seen this effect demonstrated amongst people on opposite sides of the planet, with totally different languages and cultures. We can all understand the mood and intent of a dog's bark. You don't even need to be a dog person.
Don't chickens fall into the same category as dogs? People everywhere live with them wandering around their house, then from time to time they eat one.
Ignoring any other factors, would it be OK to eat a person or dog who had some brain damage so that nobody could understand the mood or intent of anything they communicated? Would it be OK for a person with an inability to understand dogs' (or people's) moods to eat them?
What if a new breed of cow was developed that could get along with people the way dogs do. Would that elevate it to the status of being un-eatable, or not because it doesn't have the long history of people understanding it like dogs do?
These might sound like snarky questions, but their answers would help paint a clearer picture of your idea which, as you've presented it, doesn't make sense to me.
Personally, I wouldn't eat dog because I can imagine all the dogs I've met and feel some emotional connection with. But that's just my personal history. If I was the only one like that, I still wouldn't eat them. You seem to be saying that if you (or your culture) were the only person/culture who had dogs as pets, then you would be willing to eat dogs.
You also implied that it's OK to kill humans ("no sympathy"). Is it OK to kill dogs too as long as we don't eat them?
Treating a companion-in-survival as food is taboo in every sense of the word. It's emotionally tantamount to cannibalism. That's why it's unacceptable, and rightfully reviled.