We evolved empathy towards them because of superficial cute features. Like puppy dog eyes and other endearing child like features. Dogs are evolving towards a parasitic role by hijacking our biological instincts to care for things that are small and cute. This instinct never evolved t the point where it specifically only applies to human cuteness because such selection pressure was unneeded. There were human babies and that’s it.
Dogs took advantage of this situation and they evolved to hijack our paternal and maternal instincts. Now there is selection pressure. But note dogs reproduce much much faster than humans so this will be an evolutionary arms race where dogs get cuter and humans become less interested in dogs. The first round comes when the people who have dogs instead of kids fail to reproduce. Also Expect an increase in dog allergies over time.
