Mark Lowry has it exactly right about dogs. They exhibit extraordinary loyalty to humans … no matter what.

Lowry is one of our favorite Christian singers, who laces his musical performances with plenty of humorous asides. One of his favorite quips explains how dogs are far more loyal and happy to see you than most humans. “Imagine leaving your wife in a car. How do you think she would react when you return? Compare that reaction with how your dog greets you,” he will say.

We are learning that about Toby, our Chihuahua mix puppy, who joined our family just a few days ago.

My wife and I are longtime cat owners/lovers. We’ve owned dogs before; the last one came into our lives briefly about 25 years ago.

Toby took no time at all to endear himself to our hearts.

We took him on a quick trip to the Metroplex, where he got acquainted with Madden, an equally exuberant Lab-mix puppy who lives with our son and daughter-in-law in Allen. They hit it off famously.

Well, on our return home, we stopped for a grand total of about 8 minutes at a convenience store to get something to munch on and drink on our long drive from the Metroplex to the Panhandle.

We left Toby in the car. We returned a few minutes later. His greeting? Well, he acted like we’d gone a week. He was all over us.

This is the kind of thing one doesn’t get from cats. Don’t misunderstand, our kitties love us. They demonstrate it constantly, often in the middle of the night when we’re trying to sleep. They climb into bed, purr in our faces, snuggle up and usually make annoyances of themselves. But their hearts are in the right place, so we don’t get angry.

Our puppy is, well, exuberant in the extreme.

Dog owners know this, so I’m not telling them anything new.

It’s just new — to us.

We’ll get used to it.