If you sit a bowl of antifreeze down and a dog drinks it, dying a slow painful death ~ thats cruelty.
If you train a dog to protect you and command him to attack police who shoot him ~ thats cruelty.
You don't command a dog to bite into a 15,000 volt powercable, knowing it will kill him.
When you have to make up scenarios and say "it's just like..." you are STRETCHING.
Every bad thing that happens to an animal is not "cruelty", deal with it.