"Kill 1,000 kids, no biggie, but don't touch the Mutt!"

In the words of the immortal Martin Riggs: "I can't shoot a dog, people, sure, but not dogs."
I found myself upset about an advertising company basically coming out and saying through viral marketing that the dog was going to die in a movie that will remain nameless. For me, there is no bigger turn off than to hurt a dog, I can't stand it. That is why Benji, Homeward Bound and all those other stupid 'dog overcomes adversity' movies will be emotional to so many, because the thought of the dog getting hurt is unbearable. The one moment of movies I have seen over the past year or two that has brought me close to crying is when a dog is injured and about to die. I don't want to ruin a very significant plot piece in the movie, so I won't say which movie, but I looked around and found the people I was with sobbing hysterically in unison with the rest of the theatre over this dog. And, to let me know the dog is going to die, in what looks like a Turner and Hooch type move, it's something I don't care to see.
It got me thinking, though. I have seen movies with body counts in the hundreds, I've seen movies that nearly wipe out the entire human race, I have seen a movie where the badguy slays dozens of young kids with a light saber, and all of those moments never even made me skip a beat. I've seen people tortured and killed, and I've seen movies where people are blown to bits, or eaten by aliens, or ripped apart, and while grotesque, didn't really invoke much of an emotional response, certainly not the likes of when a dog is injured or killed. Does that make me a bad person? Does worrying about a dogs safety (strictly in the movie sense, I assure you) over a persons safety make me jaded to violence or gore or death in movies, or is it something that's natural? Do you get upset when someone dies, or more specifically, when a kid dies; how about when a dog is injured or killed, is it worse?
Does knowing a dog could be injured turn you off from a movie, or make you really upset, or is it as jaded as people getting killed by robots?
For me, you don't harm the dog, kill people plenty and often, but not the dog. There could be some social commentary, and I don't want to know what Sigmund Freud would say about that (maybe he would say it's caused by a deep seeded emotional trauma from my childhood).