Who came first?

We humans take over every patch of earth we can find as if it belonged to us in the first place and when we mark areas as reserve forests and the like we see it as a favour we are doing to animals but is it so?

Ok, disclaimer - Im really pissed at my neighbour and need to vent...

Heres the story - Weve adopted six dogs on the street outside our apartment. Theyve all been neutered and are fed regularly. In the last few months we have seen a change in our area, the dogs are healthier, they are harassed less by the kids and they in turn are friendlier with people.

It was a bit of work - getting the dogs to trust us so we could get them neutered and getting the apartment kids to see the dogs as more than targets and trouble. But this was the easy part, the adults are a different matter and an ongoing challenge.

People seem to go out of their way to trouble the dogs. On bikes they veer on purpose towards the dogs to scare them, kick them as they go past or beat the poor things up just cause they came close to the apartment gate. The latest is the lady in the house next to our apartment taking offence to our feeding the dogs. (She called us dirty people for lack of other words in English).

The dogs arent asking for food or affection. They just want to be left alone and if we did that they would leave us alone. But no, we must go out of our way to make their lives difficult. And then we blame them for snapping and reacting adversely to us.

Why is it that we cant be tolerant towards lives that arent human? Why does that piece of land or area belong to us even though the dogs were there long before we came along to build and stay? Why cant we be nice to them? Why cant we live and let live?