The OP mentions that the spark that caused the outrage they faced was an incident involving their pets. I'm not surprised at all. It's a very incendiary topic

The OP mentions that the spark that caused the outrage they faced was an incident involving their pets. I'm not surprised at all. It's a very incendiary topic because people have very strong opinions about animal wellbeing and animal rights. Discussion forums (and Facebook groups, etc) that concentrate on pets and animals also tends to draw in a crowd of crazy cat ladies and other individuals with very polarized opinions. I never discuss my pets, especially issues related to their health and wellbeing (or other "incidents") on the internet. You will get mean responses from people and you may get straight up harrassment from SJWs and other "activists". If you are a public figure (even slightly), this may ruin your life or your career. This gets much worse on international forums, because different cultures have different ideals of animal wellbeing. E.g. some americans consider declawing cats to be alright, a lot of british people think that cats shouldn't be kept indoors at all, some americans breed white tigers because they're "rare" (and even run a "charity" to support them) and the british don't eat horse meat at all. And then there's a bunch of people who think that animals should not be "owned" at all. Mention any of these three things on a public, internationally attended forum on animals and you are going to get a flame war. Just don't mention your pets (or other activities related to animals) on public internet forums. Nothing good can come out of it.