Talking animals are weird

Buckles, 2013-12-05.

Comic strips where pets talk and their owners understand them are pretty common, and usually I can just accept the premise and move on, but sometimes I think about it too much. For example, in this Buckles strip.

They're talking to him like as though he's a person who can be reasoned with. If that's the case, why are they allowed to keep him as a pet? Isn't this some bizarre form of slavery? It's not at Bleeker the Rechargeable Dog levels of horror, but dogs in this universe are people with intelligence comparable to humans and yet they're still kept as property.