A Dog's Best Friend Is His Illiteracy

It has been well said that quietness is what a Grecian urn is the still unravished bride of,
And that a door is what a dog is perpetually on the wrong side of.
I may add that a sachet is what many a housewife's linen is fragrantly entrusted to,
But that a cliché is what a dog owner must eventually get adjusted to.
What does the visitor say when your dog greets him with Southern hospitality and salutes him all kissin'-cousiny?
He says, He smells my dog on me, doesn't he?
And he asks, How old is he, and you say Twelve, and he appraises Spot with the eye of an antiquarian,
And says, Seven twelves are eighty something, why Spot in human terms you're an octogenarian,
But these two bromides are just the rattle before the strike,
Because then he says it's funny but he's noticed how often dogs and their masters look alike.
Such are the comments faced by dog owners from Peoria to Peshawar,
And frequently from a man who in canine terms is 322 years old, and he is the spit and image of his own Chihuahua.
The only escape is to have something instead of dogs but whatever I substituted I should probably err,
And if I ended up with racoons every guest would turn out to be a racoonteur.