You mean "Stop crying and get over it, it was only a dog. It's not like a person died.", isn't the right frame of reference?

When I was a child, "pets" were something you owned. NOW, they're more like a (lesser but true) "member of the family".

Something tells me when men were hunting buffalo and sabretooth tigers were hunting men . . . pets were "members of the family" then too, and we've come full circle.

As it should be.