Do you agree or disagree that a pet should be treated as part of the family?

In my head, I believe that pets should be treated like family members, as they can be an essential part in households. My reasons for this notion are stated below. Pets serve as good companions to the children like having a friend that lives in your home. You can play games with them like frisbree, fetch, and so on. They can learn learn tricks as well like rolling over, sitting, jumping or even standing upright. Pets can serve as guard animals(animals used for the specific purpose to prevent domestic attack from outside sources, for example: wild animals and robbers). These guard animal usually include dogs, cats and even donkeys.To illustrate this reason, i will use an example.In 2007, an eight year old boy was playing in the backyard at his house, he was oblivious of the fact that a puma or cougar was stalking him from outside the backyard, when the puma jumped over the fence and pounced on the boy, his pet pig came at the nick of time and fought the puma off, Later that day the pig was rewarded for its bravery and determination to save his owner, thus telling us that pets are not only our friends, but our protectors. Pets can also serve as a means of sport, for example, Dog racing (a sport in which, dogs bred for running, race against each other in a dash to the finish line) is a popular sport across the world, from America to Asia. Pets are used in conservationists around the world to detect the traces of endangered animals to figure out their population, for example, dogs are beingused to track down orcas or killer whale poop to see whether their population as increased or decreased in the Arctic and Antartic Circles.Truly pets are saving the world.