Dear Joe:

Animals do not have immortal souls, thus the answer is "no".

St. Thomas Aquinas identified three kinds of souls:

1) Vegetable Soul: This is the "life-force" that all living things have, including plants.

2) Sensitive Soul: This is the faculty to sense our environment and to respond to it (e.g. five senses, stimuli response, instinct). Animals have the Vegetable and Sensitive Soul.

3) Rational Soul: This is the immortal soul made in the image of God that is give to us at the moment of conception. The rational soul gives us some of the attributes of God, such as the ability to love, to reflect, to be creative, to reason, etc.

The Rational Soul is the only one that lives forever. Once we die and our bodies resurrected to live in heaven forever, we no longer have a Vegetable Soul as our life-force is no longer a material body. Our life-force will be God Himself in heaven. We will not have a Sensitive Soul in that our bodies in heaven will be glorified and not in need of a bodily/material faculty to sense our environment.

Despite all this, God, if He chooses, could bring our pets to heaven, but there would be no reason for this. A pet fills a need in us, companionship, something to love, etc. In heaven we will have no such needs. We will be 100% filled with the Holy Spirit and in a state of perfect and complete love and companion with each other and with God. The whole reason for pets will no longer exist.

With that said, God, if He chooses, may have animals in heaven as they are part of his beautiful creation, but there is no need to have in heaven with us the specific animal we had as a pet in this life.

Since this is a Spiritual Warfare Forum, let me make that connection. The devil can and does try to seduce us to have inordinate attachment to our pets -- even to the point of neglecting friends and family. The devil can also inspire us to be angry at God for the idea that our pets will not be with us in heaven. The devil likes to exploit our insecurities.

God Bless,
Bro. Ignatius Mary