Not to try to get back on topic, but...
I've seen some discussion about whether animals can give consent and whether it is "right" to rape animals. Is it "right" to murder animals? We do it all the time, how is that better than rape? The question here is whether animals have any rights, and if so, how many and why.
It's a tough question, not one that I have a particularly good answer for. It may seem heartless but I'd have to say that most animals (the ones that don't have much in the way of higher order brain functions) have almost no rights whatsoever. But what distinguishes one animal from another?
It's easy to just say that every living thing has rights and be done with it. That's easy because it means that there are no difficult questions and it makes everyone subject to criticism. It gives one a sense of higher morality over one's peer. It's almost as easy to just say that no animals have any rights and be done with it. That's easy because it means that we can do whatever we want to them and there are no tough questions. But what if there was another species on this planet (similar to humans) that was also highly intelligent, perhaps more intelligent than we are. What would distinguish that species from us? Would it have rights? Why? What if aliens were to land here, would they have rights? Or could we lock them in cages and make slaves of them. What is the fundamental reason that we afford ourselves rights?
It's because we recognize the wrong that has been done to us, and are intelligent enough to take advantage of the opportunity. Murder is illegal between humans because it causes massive emotional damage to all invovled. It's illegal because of the intelect that may have been lost - because of the ability for the victim to understand his own demise and grasp the magnitude of the offense (the victim is perhaps the only one who can fully grasp it). In short, we grant ourselves rights because we value justice between humans.
But do we require justice between animals? Does our society require non-human animals and human animals to interact in a just way? The whole concept is ludicrous. It is impossible for humans to be "just" with animals. They have no concept of justice, they lack the ability to understand it at all. They have no concept of property or fair exchange. We can't ask them if they want to carry our stuff or jump through hoops or have sex with us, because we can't properly gauge the answer.
One might say, we offer them food, make them perform a chore (like carrying a saddle or something), and then offer them freedom and see if that take it. If they don't, then they've agreed to stay.
But will they understand what we've offered them? Probably not.
My take on it is this. Until they have a concept of justice. "This is mine, that is yours. I won't take your stuff, you don't take my stuff. I don't hurt you, you don't hurt me." Then we can't give them any rights. This is why it is ok for us to put criminals in jail. They clearly do not understand justice if they go around taking other people's property or hurting people. They've basically reduced themselves to the level of an animal and we treat them accordingly by locking them up in a little zoo and feeding them occasionally. The magnitude of their misunderstanding of other people's rights is in accordiance with the magnitude of the removal of their own rights - culminating in death for the criminal at the most extreme end.
This view, incidently is why I consider it wrong to take away the rights of people who are not acting in an unjust manner. If someone wants to sell their body for sex (for example), or freely engage in games of chance for money, or put mind-altering substances into their bodies - they have not acted in an unjust manner toward anyone, they haven't violated the agreement among civilized people that property rights and personal rights be observed. In short, if you haven't hurt anyone you don't deserve to be punished.
But back to the subject at hand. Does a dog understand justice at all? Does he understand that the carpet is "yours" and that peeing on it is an assault on your property? Does he understand this after he has been trained that he will be smacked on the nose if he pees on the carpet? No. He understands action and reward, or action and punishment. He learns association between different acts - but cannot grasp the morality behind those acts.
As such, a dog cannot understand the moral violation behind rape. A dog does not have the faculty to comprehend the injustice done to him. He understands a life only of pleasure and pain, fun and work.
Does a cow understand that branding it's ass is a violation of personal rights, a moral injustice? Does it understand that a fence violates its freedom? No. It understands only that there is a fence in the way of eating grass on the other side.
What I'm getting at, is that the capacity to understand wrong doing is essential to the existance of wrong doing. Without the ability to understand that wrong has been done to you, it hasn't. This is why we can remove animals of most of their rights without concern... and yet we can afford the "missing link" we may find in some african rain forest rights, even if it is not classified as homo sapien, or we can offer an alien race from another world rights - since they will no doubt have the capacity to understand justice (of some form at least).
All that being said, animals do have the ability to understand injustice at some point. An animal that has had its appendages amputated and is starved and tortured for weeks and months on end is certainly able to understand that this is not natural or right. I think animals must be able to understand that certain degrees of abuse are unfair, it would be almost impossible to be concious and not understand at some level.
Which is why I have an apparently self-conflicting take on this issue. I don't think animals should be physically abused for long periods of time... and by abuse I mean the only kind of abuse an animal can recognize - pain. I think animals that have to live in a constant state of massive pain are well aware that they are treated unfairly, but aside from that they will not understand.
I define abuse and justice from their own point of view. Dogs bite their owners occasionally, some dogs even kill their owners. Many animals would rape each other and, in some cases, their owners. But no animal would torture another animal for an extended period of time. They don't understand evil well enough to explore it that way.
There you go. Complicated? Certainly. But I think it makes sense. Animals have almost no rights, but they do have a right not to be subject to extended period of torture.
Edit: By the way, when I say the capacity to understand wrong-doing is essential to the existance of it, that includes the capacity at any point in time or of your owners/guardians. You own your body while you're alive - it is your last remaining property after you're dead and you have some say over it (thus the existance of wills). That's why it isn't cool for someone to rape you after you're dead (in case that was the next thread that was going to start up). Similarly, if you become Terri Schaivo you don't get raped then either. That also means that nobody gets to abuse your animals or your brother (who you are guardian of) but who was born into a comatose state and will never know anything about anything - but who you keep alive because you're a little insane. Children also can't be abused because eventually they'll understand the injustice. There are lots of tricky issues about this, but it kindof a "tree falls in the forset" excercise. If nobody understands the injustice, has it been done? I would say no, but that that is a pretty high standard.
That is one funny thread 
so I had to resort to animals. It's all I get. 
