In all sincerity, I should point out that their lack of capacity to choose between right and wrong excludes animals from having any moral status in and of themselves. They are amoral entities.
We should treat animals kindly for one reason—to glorify God the Creator.
Except for a single exception, it seems to me animals in the Bible have no intrinsic value and are nothing more than props and symbols—unlike people who are given value by their Creator as sovereign individuals.
That one exception is when the father of all lies became an animal in a failed attempt to destroy God’s creation.
Humans have the potential to exist on a higher plane (infinitely so) than animals because humans, as John Lennox has explained, are the one creature God can become. As in the case of Jesus Christ, who glorifies God when he fulfills Biblical prophesy in crushing the head of the serpent.
There is no Biblical basis for seeing creatures as “props”. The Bible does not support such a view and the story of Creation clearly places animals in the garden before man. At that time there was no killing, no eating the animals — and God reiterated that. The animals are innocent victims of what mankind did to God’s world. That is reflected every day. As for what God “can become” — He “can” become anything He so chooses. Revelation points out the animals are clearly worshiping before the throne of their Creator. They are not left out, nor were they an “afterthought” of any kind. They are not here for ornamentation or for man’s pleasure. They are here for God’s - as we are.