I do accept the intelligence of other kind of animals too but that does not necessarily mean that I know what it is. What I know is that sometimes I do see them, but not very commonly (although other people may know better than I do).
I do not think that it is really a serious cognitive dissonance.
It is not my intention to harm the bees, ants, etc outside (nor is it my intention to harm the trees). If they get inside then sometimes I might need to get them outside if they would be harmful inside here (to me, them, or both), and sometimes you can step on something and will accidentally kill them if it is small, without being intentional. And we should all need the right of self defense, including both human and non-human animal must self defense from each other and anyone else (whether it is humans vs humans or not); however, not go near them is also a possible way to avoid being harmed, so that is what I do, too, outside. (Unfortunately sometimes the path is narrow.)
Even if there are spiders in my house, it is not usually my intention to harm them (although I will want them to not get in my way of a book, etc; unfortunately sometimes it does). What I read somewhere is that some kind of spider they are supposed to be in this house; at first I did not know that but they mention that it make sense so now I can know, it is good to know.
I am not going to eat all of the animals and plants outside, so, I do not need to harm them probably. But, other than that, everyone will eat everyone because that is how you will live, but nevertheless is it not a excuse to be treated badly (unfortunately they do treat some animal badly too much; well, humans are treated badly too, and also other stuff too). Some kind of animals is herbivores and some is carnivores, and humans is omnivores. And anyways, humans is also a kind of animals, too.
At school, in a science class, it was a discussion of testing drugs and other things by mice and other animals. While many students argued against such thing, I also argued against animal testing but my argument was different from the others. Most people (including the teacher) did not agree with my argument, but much more recently, I had heard on the CBC radio the similar argument than mine (made by actual scientists, unlike myself), so I know that I am not alone on this argument.
> That said, I've found many dog folks are super dismissive of the idea of cats being smart and I'm not sure why that is.
Possibly because that is their experience; they do not experience everything, so you will only know the things that you do have the experience of.
However, that isn't the only thing that it is. Another comment (31748192) mentions the other reasons why some people understand dogs better, so it isn't really as simple as I mentioned above.
> Most people love to share outrage over abuse of conventional pets or bizarre and seemingly psychotic behaviour of eating dogs yet feel nothing to the slaughter of a pig.
Dog and pig can be eaten, so at least to me that is not my outrage but I do think that they should not be treated badly.
> Do fish feel pain? Do insects experience fear? It is very difficult to to empathize with a spider or imagine that a scorpion could feel contentment
I do not know if fish feel pain or if insects experience fear, but it is possible to be harmed even if you cannot feel it at the time. However, such questions of if a fish can feel pain may be figured out in future by some scientists, possibly. I do not believe it is difficult to empathize with a spider or imagine that a scorpion could feel contentment, although perhaps it is difficult to know the details.
> I hear how it is 'dangerous' to anthropomorphize animals by people like Joe Rogan constantly. Can you explain what is 'dangerous' about it? Or why we have to be 'careful' doing so?
Well, what I think is that not everything is same; there are differences. You must be aware of the differences as well as the similarities, if you are to do it properly. Yet, some things will be unknown (so you must compensate for that, too).