Well, I had my first experience with the Blessing of the Animals worship service on Sunday evening.  I have to say that it went really well!

Contrary to Sheryl's guess, I was not bitten!

The whole concept of the animal blessing assumes that God would care about creatures other than human beings.  The converse would be that God only cares about human beings.  Seeing as how God named all of the created order good in the first chapter of Genesis, I can't help but think that our prayers for our pets are heard by God.

Which brings us to another point:  what happens to our pets when they die?  Do they go to heaven?

Do pets have a soul that moves beyond this earthly life?

After being told that dogs go to dog heaven, Bart Simpson (yes, of Fox's The Simpson's) once asked Homer if there was a dog hell.  Homer replied that, "well, yes, if there's a dog heaven, there must be a doggy hell."

"What kind of dogs go there?"

"Well, there' Hitler's dog and that dog Nixon had and one of the bad Lassies - the one that bit Timmy."

All kidding aside, I would say that for some people, heaven just wouldn't be paradise without their non-human companions.  So I would suspect that maybe something of our pets does live on past this life.  Scripture seems silent on this issue.

What do you think?

I do want to say that it was a blessing for me to pray for your pets.