Anytime I hear someone say that pets are as important as people (or even MORE important than humans, as was the opinion of a caller on Monday's show) I am reminded that the world is in many ways upside-down.

And then, a story like this comes along, and reminds me that I am not crazy and that I am correct in thinking we are superior to animals.

On April 5, an 8-year-old Jersey City boy was brutally attacked by a dog that broke loose from his chain and then bit the boy's ear off while the boy played in the backyard of his home, according to an NJ.com report.

Quynton Curry has been recovering from the attack at St. Barnabas Medical Center in Livingston. After the dog was subdued, it broke free again and bit into the child's right thigh and calf. His family has set up a GoFundMe page to help with medical expenses, possibly including a prosthetic ear.

I have nothing against animals. In fact, I have owned and loved many. When a family pet of ours died in a horrible, tragic accident a few years back, I was devastated — mostly for my kids, who had been very attached to him and mourned his passing.

Still, I admit to being a "specist." Not racist, not sexist, not agesist, but specist.

That's the new word I thought I made up for someone who singles out one species and holds it in higher regard than another — but it turns out, it's a real term! In this case, the species I think is superior is the humankind. And I'm kind of excited to admit it. To many people reading this, it's probably just as distasteful as being a racist is. But I don't apologize for it.

Does that mean I believe we shouldn't treat animals well? No. It means that we need to get back to a time when we knew that we had dominion over our family pets and in fact "owned" them. That's a difficult concept for many animal lovers to grasp, so let me re-iterate: As lovely and sweet and adorable and kind as our pets may seem, we are not their parents, brothers, sisters or any other kind of relative. We own them. When you adopt a human child, you are its parent. When you adopt a cat or dog, you are it's owner.

I can make a list of a thousand things that differentiate animals from humans, and that prove that we as a species are superior (I say this while I'm still allowed to by law). But I must point out the most glaring difference in light of this recent tragedy: A human will not bite off a child's ear for no good reason. You may think, "well the boy provoked the dog in some way." Doesn't matter. No human would think of this kind of attack. And that's the point.

Dogs can't and therefore don't think. They act on instinct. Does that make dogs bad? No. It makes them inhuman. So, in a battle between a dog and an 8-year-old named Quynton Curry, I'm on Quynton's side. That's because he's human. So to me, he's the better species.

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