It's cool, you guys, everyone gets defensive about helpless things they love. My bf said exactly the same thing. A friend of ours joked that he was going to test a crossbow on the neighborhood cats, not realizing that we had a cat. My bf said, in all seriousness, "if you hurt my grey cat, I'm gonna ******* kill you". He meant it too. It's kinda sweet, 6-foot-plus vegetarians getting violent over cute fuzzy animals.
Anyhoo. The next person likes red Swingline staplers, and knows what that's from