U_Stormcrow
Crossing the Road
...
Thanks to Disney and all other cartoonists for creating stories using animals acting like humans. The public has been fed a steady diet of this thinking (animals are just like humans emotionally) so it is no surprise that they anthropomorphize.
The anthropomorphisation of animals is older than Aesop, who assembled the first well known (to history) collection more than 2500 years ago. Early human divinities throughout history had the aspect of animals, whether just in visage (such as the various beast headed deities of the Egyptian Pantheon), in the shape-changing of certain Greek (and later Roman) deities [Zeus, particularly, was fond of taking on animal form when visiting maidens...], the town of Rome was named for the twins Romulus and Remus, said to have suckled on a she-wolf when abandoned as babes, and of course there were full animal divinities at the time, such as the Cult of Mithras, the bull - whose ceremonies continue (in a fashion) today, under the guise of still other gods.
From there, its woven thru our culture. 100 years ago, instead of Disney, we might be blaming Kipling and his "Jungle Book".