IMHO, animal love & animal rights are totally different spheres but are always wrongly correlated with each other. If a mother loves her child, it can never mean that she would love whole of humankind because of it. Same applies to the love for animals too. Applying the term "speciesist" to animal lovers is also a misnomer. More over, I also think that comparing lacto-vegetarians with animal lovers is incorrect too.

The issue actually is the intense emotion of possessiveness of something. If you try to take away any thing or any idea which is too dear to anyone, he or she will revolt aggressively against your attempt to do that. The people who do not cling to anything or are not that much attached or possessive of it will give in easily. But others won't.