Haha your reply reminded me of an episode of Bullsh!t with Penn & Teller. They were talking about pets and Penn had a dog in his lap and in a loving voice he was all, "I hate you, you stupid effing dog. I'm gonna kill you and rip your legs off, you mangy mutt." And the dog ate it up. But then he yelled, "I love you dog!" and the poor thing cowered.

Like you said, as long as the animal is loved, it could care less about the words.