Or maybe it’s the other way around; pets have people — (staff).

We see many dogs riding in the front seat of their cars and pickups while their humans drive them around.

There are also farm dogs, apparently, that ride in the bed of their pickups. We’re not sure how they direct their drivers from back there.

A picture of a great-grandson stretched out asleep on top of his scruffy looking dog in the family living room made us wonder if having pets is genetic — in people’s DNA.

Our own grandmother, Flora Harvey Reid, was an animal lover deluxe. The only critters she didn’t like were cats ... because they caught the birds that accumulated around her house. Probably because she fed them — the birds, that is — not cats

Especially quail. Her sons would bring in quail eggs they came across while doing farm work. She would hatch them under chicken hens that were sitting. Or is that setting?

We never knew our paternal grandmother but older brothers say she would let the young quail out during the daytime and then round them up in a bird cage to take them inside to safety overnight. I’ve got no idea how she would get the little birds into the case — maybe feed?

Quail hunters were certainly frowned on (make that prohibited) on the Reid farm.

Our grandmother would have been extremely disappointed in me. I’ve had birddogs for over 60 years and count them as some of my closest friends.

I still have three pointers but no birddogs. They’re just companions on nature walks.

I like horses, too, and considered some of them almost human in spirit.

I lost my last sweet mare, Gracie, during the first cold weather last winter,

My eyes might have been a little misty when I called our neighbor, John Phillips, who I’d made funeral arrangements with earlier (he’s got a backhoe), after I saw her failing seriously. That way she didn’t have to leave home.

When I took her to the vet the last time, I asked the veterinarian’s assistant if he thought some special animals went to Heaven.

He replied softly: “I think there is a place for them.”

I liked that.

It reminds me of the Will Rogers comment.

“If dogs don’t go to Heaven, I want to go where my dog goes.”

Gracie helped raise children, grandchildren neighbor kids and children’s friends, giving them their first horseback rides. Also count several litters of puppies among the recipients of her kindness. She was a one in a million horse, to me. She never did anything “dumb” in her more than 30 years of life.

For instance, when I turned puppies loose, they would immediately run to Gracie, who would be waiting expectantly at the gate, and snuggle up around her hooves. She wouldn’t move a foot until all the pups had wandered off.

Our menagerie of cats miss her as much as I do. Big Kitty (the only name she has) made Gracie her protector when she decided she wasn’t going to live in the house any more after our daughter Ellyn brought her cat, Kevyn, to stay with us while she moved to Michigan. Ellyn’s in Michigan and Kevyn (both have a “y” in their names) is still living in our house.

After Big Kitty changed her abode to outdoors, she immediately started hanging out with Gracie. That could be the reason coyotes never got her.

After Gracie died, she started showing up at the house each evening. Now I feed her in the garage and lock her up each night. (Coyotes, you know.)

This pet thing has carried on to subsequent generations.

Son Mike has a little dog, Aggie, that goes everywhere with him. (He leaves their pickup running with the air conditioner on if he has to stop for any reason.)

Son Barry and his wife, Mary, still miss their Golden Retriever, Max, that helped them raise their three sons. (Note: They’ve got two dogs now, Lilly and Rose, that are sweet animals but don’t quite take Max’s place.)

An author John Bradshaw, an honorary research fellow at the University of Bristol in England, has written a book, “The Animals Among Us: How Pets make us Human.”

In the book, Bradshaw asserts that our fascination with pets is not because they’re useful, or even because they’re cute, and certainly not because they’ll make us live longer. Instead, he writes, pet-keeping is an intrinsic part of human nature, one rooted deeply in our own species’ development.

See, pet addicts aren’t as weird as they’re made out to be.

Later on, the writer said that writing or speaking about one’s pets gives the owner an image of trustworthiness. Hah.

By the way there’s a word for attributing human characteristics to animals — anthropomorphic.