Empathy is the ability the share the feelings of another. If you think animals experience same depth of human emotion, love, hate, joy, suffering, then I pity your deluded perception of reality. A truly empathetic person would more easily recognize and associate with the feelings of his own species long before an animal. Saying someone can only be empathetic to an animal, rather than a human, is an illusion, excusing legitimate antisocial behavior.