Well, she’s not wrong.

 
“That’s my pony.”

I need Arizona and Applejack stories, arts or whatever on this or any other matter NOW please!

@Joshua  
You know something, that’s abuse for what Arizona did

@Athletic-Dashie  
My dear, dear friend…  

Arizona, Really?

@Thanagor  
Do this:

@Thanagor
 
Don’t forget the ! at the beginning and end of the URL.
 

@Pagan
 
Fuck. That didn’t work.

@Pagan
 
http://i0.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/newsfeed/000/352/749/e44.gif

@ShimmeringStallion  
Oh sure! That kind of damage doesn’t knock her down.

Then Applejack bounces back. Granny Smith always did say she was a bit thick-skulled.

There need to be comics like these with all of the Mane 6 cast.

@PonyPon  
Can’t say I feel like the writers handled that scene as well as they could have, so what can be said there is limited, but I’m quite sure that Fluttershy could have declined. I certainly don’t think it was meant to be implied as slavery. I also want to say that Dash was simply not thinking at that particular moment, as she does very much care for her friends and would never do something like that to them regardless.
 
Besides, even in a hypothetical, different, much darker setting, it would be quite silly for someone to be able to just take someone standing next to them and sell them as a slave just like that.
 
Anyway, my suggestion is to simply ignore the sheep situation entirely, as any sort of slavery simply would not be an acceptable interpretation of that situation, and you know it. It would shit all over all the nice lessons and friendship and other such things in the show, and it wouldn’t fit the setting at all.
 
If you think you can come up with some sort of non-dark explanation, then feel free to try, but I again, think the best course of action is to take these things with a grain of salt, and concede that they are the kind of non-serious, implication lacking elements you’d expect in a children’s cartoon, even one of MLP’s quality.
 
Not that I think people analyzing the details in the show is a bad thing, I just think that they should be more humble in the process, rather than insisting that what they find is always reliable, or that it’s somehow set in stone because they pieced together a few relatively insignificant details and made potentially radical assumptions based on that.
 
And when it comes to grimdark theories and stuff like that, perhaps they’d benefit from admitting just how silly and horribly out of place those usually are, because god knows I’ve heard plenty that are just downright ridiculous and unjustified.
 
Eh, I could rant about this stuff for hours probably, but hopefully I’ve gotten the point across.
 
@Marnssj  
I’m quite sure that Equestria is a nice enough setting that all sapient species are afforded the same rights.
 
The pigs do not seem to be sapient. The goats do, though perhaps they speak another language. Who knows.
 
Bottom line though, the stuff like the sheep was meant to be a split minute joke that held no implications, not some sort of aspect of worldbuilding that the writers put there for any reason in particular. It’s frustrating that some people insist on things like that having some sort of significance, when they clearly don’t.

@Background Pony #A4B1  
Well not all the critters are sapient, either. Pigs don’t talk, goats don’t “talk” except in some language only Iron Will seems to understand. I just think it’s super weird that sheep and cows are sapient but still farm animals, essentially. It’s almost as if some animals are more equal than others…

@Background Pony #A4B1  
Remember when Rd ‘sold Shy into slavery’?
 
I’m sure with enough clever wording and technicalities, we could call the situation these ‘domesticated animals’ are in anything you wanted.
 
And while I’m painfully aware the writers aren’t especially detail-oriented, they can put things in place without really thinking of what else they imply. Which you’re free as they were to do the same.

@PonyPon  
Yeah, I saw it as joke it was supposed to be (not a good one, mind you, but it’s clearly a joke regardless), rather than the clowns who actually take stuff like that seriously and then form edgy headcanons around it.
 
If sheep and such are sapient in Equestria, then they would quite obviously be afforded rights, because in no reasonable interpretation of Equestria would something grimdark like slavery be acceptable. Equestria isn’t perfect, but it’s still a pretty damn nice place with friendship and love and other good values and so on. And if nothing else, the princesses and princes would never tolerate stuff like that.
 
I certainly hope you don’t think the writers took the time to sit down and consider the possibility that people would take every little detail they throw in their seriously, as that would clearly be foolish. Stuff like the sheep should simply be brushed off as nothing, because slavery and other grimdark nonsense certainly doesn’t fit in with the rest of the setting.
 
My apologies for being rather aggressive here, I’ve grown tired of hearing morons going off about how they looked too deeply into their cartoons and scrounged up some wildly grimdark theories that make no sense whatsoever.

Dammit, AJ XD
 
Something tells me Pinkie’s next.

@PonyPon  
AJ has more than a sheep pen. She has a cow gate, and a chicken coop.

@Background Pony #A4B1  
Sapient or not, she’s still a cow.
 
And Aj is used to things working a certain way in her home kingdom.
 
You saw her sheep pen.

Oh, please, PLEASE don’t let Arizona headbutt Fluttershy! She’s just too weak to handle that much power from a cow!

@PonyPon  
…And how exactly is that related to being honest? Sapient beings are NOT made to live in captivity.
 
What are you getting at?

Aj, not the time to be honest.