While I think both of those points are very debatable (just search YouTube for factory farming videos if you really think livestock conditions are better), they still miss the point. After all, both of your points could just as easily apply to dogs, cats, horses, whales, chimpanzees and heck, even humans. My main argument is that there is really no morally consistent way to think that eating dogs, cats, horses or whales is abhorrent but eating pigs or cows is OK.
I think you are correct, but agreeing with you on the lack of moral consistency does not drive me to cut meat out of my diet. I've never tried dog, but I certainly would. I keep dogs as pets and I would never eat my own dogs. They have emotional value to me, by my own design, as that's the purpose I've given them in my life.
There are many reasons to why we wouldn't eat certain animals. Cats hunt rodents, dogs are protective, horses provide transportation. Cows don't do any of those things well, and they also taste wonderful.
See my response here[0] on whether living in nature or on a factory farm is more more horrific. The gist is: each breeding pair of animals produces, on average, just two offspring who themselves live to reproduce. The implication is that the vast majority of animals ever born die of predation, starvation, or via exposure to the elements. Nature is a bloodbath.
