I agree with you that this notion that status is something unimportant -- that it's all about "high school popularity contests and all that sort of thing" (to quote Skatche) -- underlies a lot of the discussion so far.

And as I said here, I think this is simply wrong... unwarrantedly dismissive of the real effects of status. Low status gets people killed.

As for animals, yes, we disagree: I would say that an animal being treated cruelly is in a lower-status position, one in which it has less ability to effect its preferences, than one being treated kindly.