I have no problem with others eating dog meat, I wouldn't, but that's me. However, torturing the dog to death is a problem especially when it is possible, and even easier, to kill it humanely. In my opinion, the only reasons to ever kill something are defense and food. In either case, especially if it is for food, I believe it is your duty to kill it as humanely as possible and make the most of it if possible, as Vet said earlier. It is losing its life for you, you should be thankful, in the case that it is for food.
There's been a lot of talk about valuing human life over dog, dog over human, monkey over dog, or whatever combination. I'm not sure how one can argue that the life of any animal, including humans, is inherently more important than the life for another barring religion of course, I don't recognize that as a legitimate reason. The only reasons most people think that human life is because they are human and they are bias and/or they have been told all their lives this is the case. One's own bias, interests, and influences determine what lives he values more or less. In my case, I see my pets as about the equivalent as my children; so yes, I would allow most people to die if given a choice between my dog and some random person because it is in my interest to keep my dog alive and not some random person, just like most people would rather that random person die than their child.
Also, there are a lot of implications of hypocrisy, especially in the whole eating tortured dog vs. supporting evil US gov't analogy. Everyone is a hypocrite at some level; there is not a single exception. People should strive to not be hypocrites, but bias and beliefs and other influences will never go completely dead. The analogy is ok, but those two things aren't completely comparable. A large differentiating factor is the cost of not supporting the "bad behavior." Benz would incur 0 cost when he asked that the puppy be killed humanely rather than tortured. However, Flower would incur potentially heavy costs in changing her country of residence. She would have to cover long distance moving costs, possible take the time to learn a new language, possibly go through a citizenship process in her new country in which case the US would want her to relinquish her US citizenship, which is another cost, among other costs. That is an economic issue, does her belief that the US gov't is bad overpower the cost of relocating? If yes, she should relocate. If no, she should not relocate. I'm not saying anything about Flower's opinions, just using an example. They are also not quite the same because one is direct and the other is not direct, like Flower said.
Sorry for the long post.