I have a confession: I’m a dog man. And I married a dog woman. I’m not talking here about some sort of “Teen Wolf” situation, I merely mean that we prefer dogs to cats as household pets. Last May, after having lost our beloved senior dog named Phil, we adopted a rescue, a 5-year-old golden retriever named Toby, who quickly ingratiated himself into our household, becoming fast friends with Karen, the slightly younger golden retriever whom we had adopted as a companion to the aging Phil. From the first moment Toby arrived, it has been like he was always with us. Karen and Toby love to roughhouse, steal toys from each other, and act goofy together. They both have beautiful copper-colored fur and nearly identical distinctive markings on their toes, such that we have wondered whether they may actually be related through a common parent. The one notable difference is that Toby is nearly silent, while Karen is quite vocal; she’s earned the nickname “Lady Barks-a-lot,” and serves as an effective canine early warning system when anyone has the temerity to walk down the public street in front of our house. But it was a full two months before I heard Toby bark, and he remains quite tight-lipped in his pronouncements. Fortunately, Karen picks up the slack so that we fulfill our daily household bark quota. Dogs (and all pets) bring joy to our lives. No matter how bad a day I may have had at the office, fortunately a rare occasion, I know that every evening when I come home, Karen and Toby will be waiting at the window with their tails wagging, excited to greet me enthusiastically the moment I come in the door. Of course I don’t know what really goes on inside their heads; it may just be their excitement from recognizing me as the person who feeds and waters them and gives them scritches. But even if we merely anthropomorphize the motivations of animals, I still like to think that my dogs are actually happy to see and be with me. Dogs appear occasionally in salvation history. The Gospel of Matthew famously tells a story of Jesus and the Canaanite woman. While Jesus and his disciples were traveling outside of Israel in the towns of Tyre and Sidon, a Canaanite woman asked Jesus to heal her daughter. Jesus replied in a rather striking fashion, telling her that “it is not right to take the children’s food and throw it to the dogs,” to explain that His mission was to proclaim salvation solely to the Jewish people. But the foreign woman replied, “Please, Lord, even the dogs eat the scraps that fall from the master’s table.” Jesus remarked that her request revealed her great faith in Him, and He healed her daughter according to her wish (cf. Mt 15:21-28). There is also a story told about Blessed Jane of Aza, a 12th century Spanish noblewoman who had a dream of a dog springing from her womb, carrying a torch in its mouth, which it ran to the ends of the earth. Blessed Jane took this as a sign that she would soon have a son, and she named her boy Dominic in honor of St. Dominic of Silos, the local monastery where she had prayed for the baby. Young Dominic grew into a man of great faith and learning, and founded the Order of Preachers, better known as the Dominicans. The order he established has indeed traveled to the ends of the earth to preach the light of the Gospel, fulfilling the prenatal dream of Blessed Jane. And most delightfully, in a lovely bit of wordplay, the nickname of the order can be read as “Domini canes,” Latin for “hounds of the Lord.” God’s dogs, as it were. I believe that pets are a sign that God loves us and wants us to be happy. The affection and loyalty that a dog shows to its owner are reminders that God loves us unconditionally and never withdraws His love. The story of salvation that we hear proclaimed in the scriptures at Mass reminds us time and again that God loves everything He has made, including you and me – even when we sin and turn away from Him. Jesus taught His disciples that God rejoices over the sinner who repents (cf. Lk 15:7). A popular movie from my childhood was the animated feature “All Dogs Go to Heaven.” Theologians and philosophers may be divided on the question of whether dogs actually go to heaven, but having lost several beloved pets through the years, I take great consolation in the fact that Christ’s redemption extends to all creation. As St. Paul wrote to the Romans, “creation awaits with eager expectation the revelation of the children of God” (Rom 8:19). “Behold,” says Jesus in the Book of Revelation, “I make all things new” (21:5). So, while the Church has not definitively ruled on the question, we can hope that the God who created all things out of love will preserve and renew even the four-legged beasts with human names like Phil, Karen, and Toby. May it be so! The post God’s Dogs appeared first on Today's Catholic.