Without the dog, hunting, domestication and the herding of livestock would have been much more difficult and in some cases impossible. Dogs were even the first pack and draft animals. There are even theories that suggest that it was the dog that played a key roll in human dominance over it's Neanderthal competition. There is a reason they are called "mans best friend" and it's not because they are cute and nice to pet. They guarded our homes and our children and they were our very first partners in our survival as a species. They hold a special place in our evolutionary history and it is criminal that some societies cage, torture and cook them. It is almost impossible to calculate the immense contribution dogs have made to mankind's success and survival. Unfortunately some of us have lost sight of that evolutionary reality.
As far as the horse goes we owe that to the dog as well. Horses are no more than livestock, the dog made obtaining and controlling that livestock possible. Whenever I see dogs being treated like the ones in those pics I literary want to exterminate the monsters responsible. I fully expect you to not understand my passion for this but do not confuse me with some animal rights loon. I only feel this way about dogs and for me even people outside my family take a backseat to the way I feel about dogs. I was raised in a house that always had dogs, they were members of the family and they were my first real friends as a child. I can't imagine a household without one and I can no more imagine eating one as I could imagine eating a human member of my family.