I've only ever had puss cats and goldfish (not including the tragic hamster from school who died within 24hrs of coming home from school of old age, we didn't have it long enough to count as a pet.), but dogs have always seemed to me to have a lot of the qualities of young children, better behaved, but innocently trusting, amazingly loyal little creatures happy to make you the centre of their universe. Just as with a child, how can you explain indeed? Nice poem jstro. Shanna :-) ps if this isn't meant to follow one of those syllable constricted poetry styles, shouldn't it be "waiting for the jingle of his keys"?