Good post Pow Wow - like you I grew up on a farm and fed the calves which went to slaughter and then came back to us a quarters which we then butchered and put in the freezer! - Had we been allowed to kill them ourselves we would have...

Obviously though there is a bit of a  difference in how we treat our pet/companion animals and how we treat livestock for food. Yes we should take care of both, give them the best life we can (good animal husbandry) - but we don't generally kill our pets for food.