I'm assuming you want to store the interestKeys in a list.
Using the org.json library:
JSONObject obj = new JSONObject("{interests : [{interestKey:Dogs}, {interestKey:Cats}]}");
List list = new ArrayList();
JSONArray array = obj.getJSONArray("interests");
for(int i = 0 ; i < array.length() ; i++){
list.add(array.getJSONObject(i).getString("interestKey"));
}