Anyone else find equating pets and animals with humans to be rather strange?

[Humanist_Activist]

195. The problem is that, in real life, there is no way to figure out if death is 100% certain...

if you make one choice over another, the probability may be greater or lower due to circumstances both in your control and not in your control.

Given the parameters of the OP's hypothetical, I laid out what is most likely to occur.

Would I attempt to rescue a human over another species in all circumstances? I'll have to be honest and say I don't know, but most likely I would attempt to rescue the human first simply because we happen to be less equipped in a physical sense to handle most crises without assistance and/or training.

The problem is you would have to assume that both have an good chance of surviving if you rescue them, and that the other has no chance of surviving without your intervention. There are very few circumstances where this can exist, even with the outlandish scenarios you laid out.

Drowning, for example, can be a very slow process, and depending on ability, time, weather, circumstances, and location, risk assessments will differ greatly.

ON EDIT: To be frank, I generally hate these types of thought experiments because of their oversimplification and unrealistic expectations. I can suspend disbelief for fiction, but not for what should be "realistic" scenarios.