Humans, Pets, & Love

I am a dog lover. Always have been. I can count the number of years of my life that the household in which I live has been without a dog (or two) on one hand. I currently have a dog. Well...a Chihuahua, but close enough. I love his affection, companionship, and the safe space that he provides for me after a long day.

The question I want to pose is: To what extent can and do pets serve as a hindrance from practicing the love of God amongst humanity (a call I believe to be central to God's will)?

Some pertinent thoughts, both for and against such a question:

The joke is told: Why is a dog better than a spouse? Well...if you lock them both in the trunk of you car overnight, which one will be happier to see you in the morning?

Loving pets is mostly very easy. If you don't love them, you don't have to have them. If you do love them, it's pretty much pure joy. Loss can be hard, but in the long run, it's easy to pass love upon a pet.

It's not always so easy to love humans. Yet that is part of our primary call in the gospel: to love humanity.

It's notable to me that in the creation story, the companionship of animals did not provide what God perceived as the antithesis of loneliness. Only another human fulfilled the solution to the problem that "It's not good for man to be alone."

Animals are part of creation. Nurturing creation is part of God's will for humanity. I am one who believes that all of creation is being and will be redeemed, including animals. I look forward to an eternity that includes the whole animal kingdom.*

Yet...how much of who we are supposed to be is transferred upon animals, particularly in USian society? The financial numbers are astounding. As much as I love my dog, I am confounded by what is presented to me when we make a visit to the vet. Some who know me may remember the saga with my previous dog (a chocolate lab) who was the victim of a horribly botched spaying which led us to the animal ER where I had to make an excruciating decision of whether to save her or not (we did...and I still wrestle with it). I'm pretty sure that I'll not make the same kind of decision with our current dog (whose neutering went perfectly fine).

Anyway, I'm open to conversation. Pastorally and ecclesiologically, I see it as a potential problem; a hindrance to our work we're called to in the Church. I see people whose lives seem to bear witness to the idea that they don't need anything else because they have their pet. While on the surface this is cute and perhaps can even be called pragmatically productive, I wonder about it in the grand plan of the Kingdom of God.

Animals can certainly serve in wonderful ways that humans cannot. I have friends with service dogs, helping out in the areas of sight loss as well as anxiety prevention and transference. I think these are wonderful companions and a great example of how God meant for humans and the rest of creation to co-exist.

It is true that the divine love within us can be inappropriately transferred to pretty much anything. Whether it's money, possessions, or even inappropriate human relationship, this is often called idolatry. It's recently become popular to conclude that the opposite of addiction is human love rather than sobriety, a conclusion with which I tend to agree. There's nothing inherently evil about animals (yes, yes...even snakes and cats). I just wonder why we don't call ourselves to task on this with pets more often.

I like to go running at one of the local dog parks in Hingham (Bare Cove - it's awesome, you should go there). I love seeing people walking their dogs. Often, dogs are the beginning of human connection, the start to a conversation that likely wouldn't otherwise occur if not for the pet. But I also see a lot of people who seemingly escape human interaction via their pet.

What do you think?

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*Tangentially related, Wesley's sermon, The General Deliverance is a great read concerning the salvation of nonhuman animals.