This is much longer than anything posted here so far, and it's a different style as well.  But I think it applies.  It perfectly describes how we feel compared to people who think our four-legged kids are nothing more than unimportant pets.  But we know there's no such thing as "just a dog," and so did the man who wrote this poem.

Fidele's Grassy Tomb

     by Sir Henry Newbolt (1862 – 1938)

The Squire sat propped in a pillowed chair,
His eyes were alive and clear of care,
But well he knew that the hour was come
To bid good-bye to his ancient home.

He looked on garden, wood, and hill,
He looked on the lake, sunny and still;
The last of earth that his eyes could see
Was the island church of Orchardleigh.

The last that his heart could understand
Was the touch of the tongue that licked his hand:
"Bury the dog at my feet," he said,
And his voice dropped, and the Squire was dead.

Now the dog was a hound of the Danish breed,
Staunch to love and strong at need:
He had dragged his master safe to shore
When the tide was ebbing at Elsinore.

From that day forth, as reason would,
He was named "Fidele," and made it good;
When the last of the mourners left the door
Fidele was dead on the Chantry floor.

They buried him there at his master's feet,
And all that heard of it deemed it meet:
The story went around for years,
Till it came at last to the Bishop's ears.

Bishop of Bath and Wells was he,
Lord of the lords of Orchardleigh;
And he wrote to the Parson the strongest screed
That Bishop may write or Parson read.

The sum of it was that a soulless hound
Was known to be buried in hallowed ground:
From scandal sore the Church to save 
The dog must be taken from master's grave.

The heir was far in a foreign land,
The Parson was wax to my Lord's command:
He sent for the Sexton and bade him make
A lonely grave by the shore of the lake.

The Sexton sat by the water's brink
Where he used to sit when he used to think:
He reasoned it slow, but he reasoned it out,
And his argument left him free from doubt.

"A Bishop," said he, "is the top of his trade:
But there's others can give him a start with the spade:
Yon dog, he carried the Squire ashore,
And a Christian couldn't ha' done no more."

So the grave was dug; the mason came
And carved on stone good Fidele's name:
But the dog that the Sexton laid inside
Was a dog that never had lived or died.

So the Parson was praised, and the scandal stayed,
Till a long time after, the church decayed,
And laying the floor anew, they found
In the tomb of the Squire the bones of a hound.

As for the Bishop of Bath and Wells,
No more of him the story tells;
Doubtless he lived as a Prelate and Prince,
And died and was buried a century since.

And whether his view was right or wrong
Has little to do with this my song;
Something we owe him, you must allow;
And perhaps he has changed his mind by now.

The Squire in the family Chantry sleeps,
The marble still his memory keeps:
Remember, when the name you spell,
There rest Fidele's bones as well.

For the Sexton's grave you need not search,
'Tis a nameless mound by an island church:
An ignorant man, of humble lot -
But he knew one thing that a Bishop did not!

A poem for those of us who have loved and lost dogs.

The dogs who've shared our lives.

In subtle ways they let us know

their spirit still survives.

Old habits still make us think

we hear a barking at the door.

Or step back when we drop

a tasty morsel on the floor.

Our feet still go around the place

the food dish used to be,

And sometimes, coming home at night,

we miss them terribly.

And although time may bring new friends

and a new food dish to fill,

That one place in our hearts

belongs to them, and always will.

--Linda Barnes