If one were to take an honest old Winchester and refinish it, that by god, is sacrilege! Go fuck your dog (if he'll/she'll let you) but remember, a Winchester must find generations hence. Why ruin it with your pedestrian esthetic?

Pets are treated differently than inanimate property. You can't torture them and you can't have sex with them, for example. Property, as others have pointed out, does not entail complete control by owners. Owning land, for example, does not give the owner rights to do everything with that property. So, it's not a simple concept, property, in the law. Even inanimate property use can be restricted: firearms give many examples of this. There are many things (that you may own) you cannot set fire to, also.