Goodbye to my little best mate

 Our lovely, warm-hearted little dog of immense personality was put to sleep today. At nearly fifteen 
years old he’d had a good innings (105 in dog years), but his back legs had gone phut to the degree that he couldn’t push up on them, making it almost impossible for him to get through the dog door. He’d surprise us sometimes by going out through it without difficulty, but then couldn’t get back in; there was a step on the other side making it a bigger jump. And he’d started to baulk at coming up the three back steps; I’d have to go out and rescue him. Or not. Sometimes he’d just do it, somehow. Even as recently as yesterday.

He was sleeping a lot more, and we’d had to start feeding him on kitten kibble because he’d lost some front teeth. I don’t know when this happened, but it must have been in the last few months. He was losing weight – I could feel bones in his back that I hadn’t noticed before, and even his fur didn’t seem to be growing as fast as usual. On top of all this, there was some constriction in his throat which meant he’d hoick like an old man, and not always get rid of what was there.

But it was still extremely hard to have him put down. Both my wife and I have struggled to make the decision over the last weeks and we’ve put it off more than once. Today was very emotional all round. He’s the first dog we’ve owned – we’d always had a cat or two when the kids were growing up.

He’s been my companion on endless walks, and until recently would walk as long as I was walking. Up till last year people we met still thought he was a puppy. Lately however, a breathlessness would creep in and even walking round the block was an issue. For a while I’d take him out in a pram to make sure he got some fresh air.

So, will we see him again? As Christians we believe we’ll see a lot of people we’ve known in Heaven* - but will we see our pets?

Peter Kreeft in his book, Everything You Ever Wanted to Know About Heaven: But Never Dreamed of Asking has a brief section answering the question: Are there animals in Heaven? He writes:

The simplest answer is: Why not? How irrational is the prejudice that would allow plants (green fields and flowers) but not animals into Heaven! Much more reasonable is C. S. Lewis’ speculation that we will be “between the angels who are our elder brothers and the beasts who are our jesters, servants, and playfellows”. Scripture seems to confirm this: “thy judgments are like the great deep; man and beast thou savest, O Lord.” Animals belong in the “new earth” as much as trees.

C. S. Lewis supposes that animals are saved “in” their masters, as part of their extended family. Only tamed animals would be saved in this way. It would seem more likely that wild animals are in Heaven too, since wildness, otherness, not-mine-ness, is a proper pleasure for us. The very fact that the seagull takes no notice of me when it utters its remote, lonely call is part of its glory.

Would the same animals be in Heaven as on earth? “Is my dead cat in Heaven?” Again, why not? God can raise up the very grass; why not cats? Though the blessed have better things to do than play with pets, the better does not exclude the lesser. We were meant from the beginning to have stewardship over the animals; we have not fulfilled that divine plan yet on earth; therefore it seems likely that the right relationship with animals will be part of Heaven: proper “pet-ship”. And what better place to begin than with already petted pets?

From chapter 2 of Everything You Ever Wanted To Know About Heaven: But Never Dreamed of Asking, by Peter Kreeft . Ignatius Press, 1990

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*When I write ‘Heaven’ here, and Kreeft is the same, it’s necessary to keep in mind that we’re remembering that those who receive everlasting life through belief in Jesus will one day live in a New Earth, a place often known as Heaven, but in fact a wonderfully heightened version of earth as we know it now, a place utterly fit for human beings to dwell in.