Probably not. People who own pet snakes feed rats and mice to them all the time.
But we, as humans, have recognized degrees of intelligence - degrees of ‘LIFE’ - in animals. We seem to reflexively understand that dogs and horses, for example, should be treated differently, be given a higher level of respect, than rodents, or, say, fish.
I agree with that. Civilization across the world has been largely built on the backs of horses and dogs, and we have valued them precisely because of the superiority to other animals that their intelligence and apparent emotional capacities suggest. Otherwise, they would have been as much use to us as rats; and as much honored.
(We may change our minds on this, as we evolve...a lot of people think that pigeons, for example, are just flying rats; and my two pet ones have convinced me that they are not ;-)
I don’t know the real truth of this story; but if a ‘teacher’ actually did this, there’s something really wrong with him/her with regard to common sense.
“Civilization across the world has been largely built on the backs of horses and dogs, and we have valued them precisely because of the superiority to other animals that their intelligence and apparent emotional capacities suggest. Otherwise, they would have been as much use to us as rats; and as much honored.”
More likely they are valued based on their usefulness. Pigs are at least as intelligent as dogs but their usefulness is limited to food. So we eat them.