“Will I See My Dog in Heaven?”

What Scripture Really Says About the Animals We Love and the World to Come

I was signing a book recently for one of our Smeraglia pet Doodle families. This family has loved three of our puppies over the years, and one of those precious dogs has passed away. Now they are in the process of adding another sweet Smeraglia puppy to their family.

As I sat there thinking about what to write inside their book, my heart went immediately to the little dog they had loved and lost.

And I thought about a question I have heard countless times through all my years of raising puppies and walking alongside families:

“Sherri, do you think my dog will be in Heaven?”

Or sometimes, through tears:

“Will I ever see my dog again?”

What a tender question.

When you’ve loved a dog for ten or twelve or fifteen years, that dog has lived through chapters of your life with you. They were there when children were little. They were there through moves and marriages, celebrations and heartbreaks. They slept beside you when you were sick. They somehow knew when you needed comfort before anybody else did.

And then one day, their little life here is finished.

So where do they go?

Will we see them again?

I decided I wanted to really look at this question—not simply as a dog breeder, and not merely from my emotions, but through the lens of Scripture.

And before we go any further, I want to say something very clearly.

I Cannot Give You a Promise the Bible Doesn’t Give Us

I cannot find a concrete verse in Scripture that says:

“Your individual pet will go to Heaven, and you will be reunited with that pet someday.”

I wish there were one.

There isn’t.

And I don’t ever want to make God’s Word say something that God Himself did not say.

But as I began looking at Scripture as a whole, I discovered something beautiful.

While God does not explicitly promise us that our particular beloved pet will be waiting for us, the Bible has quite a lot to say about animals, creation, restoration and the world that is coming.

And those Scriptures give me tremendous hope.

Animals Matter to God

Let’s begin with something very simple.

God made them.

Animals weren’t man’s idea. They were God’s idea.

Before we ever loved a dog, God created dogs.

Before we ever admired a horse running across a pasture, God designed the horse.

Before we heard birds singing in the morning, God created their voices.

And the Bible repeatedly reveals that God doesn’t merely create animals and then forget about them.

He cares for His creatures.

Psalm 36:6 tells us that God preserves both people and animals. Jesus Himself spoke about God’s awareness of even the sparrows.

And I found something else interesting when I looked at what the Catechism of the Catholic Church says about animals.

The Catechism does not teach that our individual pets are guaranteed to be reunited with us in Heaven. But it says something I think is absolutely beautiful: animals are God’s creatures, they are surrounded by His providential care, and by their very existence they give Him glory.

I love that.

My dog is one of God’s creatures.

That doesn’t make an animal the same as a human being created in God’s image. Scripture makes an important distinction between human beings and animals.

But animals aren’t meaningless to God either.

They belong to His creation.

And then we come to some extraordinary prophetic passages.

When God Shows Us His Coming Kingdom, There Are Animals There

Isaiah gives us one of Scripture’s most beautiful pictures of the coming reign of the Messiah:

Isaiah 11:6–9.

The wolf lives with the lamb.

The leopard lies down with the goat.

The calf and lion are together.

The cow and bear feed together.

The lion eats straw like an ox.

And a little child leads them.

There is no hurting and no destroying on God’s holy mountain.

Think about that.

When God wanted to give His people a picture of a creation in which peace had replaced violence and the knowledge of the Lord filled the earth, animals were part of the picture.

They weren’t removed from God’s beautiful creation.

They were restored within it.

And Then Isaiah Says Something Even More Remarkable

In Isaiah 65, God says:

“I create new heavens and a new earth.”

And as that prophetic description continues, what do we find?

Animals.

Again, the wolf and lamb feed together. The lion eats straw like the ox. There is no harming or destroying on God’s holy mountain.

Now, I know there are different theological interpretations concerning exactly how Isaiah’s prophecy relates to the Millennial Kingdom and ultimately to the new heavens and new earth.

That’s an eschatology lesson for another day!

But we don’t have to settle every question about the timeline to notice something important:

God’s picture of restoration includes His creatures.

Creation Itself Is Waiting for Redemption

Romans 8 may be the passage that moves me most when thinking about this.

Paul tells us that creation itself is waiting.

Creation has been subjected to frustration and decay because of sin. But Paul says that creation itself will ultimately be liberated from its bondage to corruption.

In other words, God’s redemption story is bigger than rescuing human souls from earth and taking them somewhere else.

God is redeeming His creation.

And that’s important when we talk about Heaven.

Because sometimes our picture of Heaven isn’t really the Bible’s picture.

We imagine becoming disembodied spirits sitting on clouds forever.

But the ultimate Christian hope is resurrection.

It is restoration.

It is a new heaven and a new earth.

Revelation 21 describes the culmination of God’s redemptive plan: God dwelling with His people, death defeated, mourning ended, crying ended, and pain ended.

God isn’t throwing His creation away.

He is making all things new.

Even God’s Covenant Language Includes Animals

There’s a little verse in Hosea that I had to stop and read again.

In Hosea 2:18, when God describes a future covenant of peace, He specifically mentions the beasts of the field, the birds of the sky and the creatures that move along the ground.

Again and again, animals appear in God’s story.

They are there in creation.

They are preserved through Noah.

They appear in God’s covenant language.

They appear in the prophets.

They appear in descriptions of Messiah’s peaceful kingdom.

And creation itself is included in Paul’s description of redemption.

So do I believe there will be animals in God’s restored creation?

Yes. I believe Scripture gives us very good reason to believe there will be.

But that brings us back to the question that matters most when your heart is broken.

“But Sherri, Will My Dog Be There?”

That’s the question, isn’t it?

Not simply:

“Will animals exist?”

But:

“Will my dog be there?”

Will the little dog who slept at the foot of my bed be there?

Will the dog who grew up with my children be there?

Will the dog whose collar I still can’t bring myself to put away be there?

Will I hear those paws running toward me again?

Here is where I have to remain faithful to Scripture.

I don’t know.

The Bible doesn’t explicitly tell me.

And because God didn’t tell us, I won’t turn something I desperately hope for into a doctrine God never gave us.

But I also won’t tell a grieving family:

“No. You’ll never see that dog again.”

Because Scripture doesn’t tell me that either.

Instead, I would tell them:

I have hope.

Jesus Said, “I Go to Prepare a Place for You”

Before His crucifixion, Jesus comforted His disciples in John 14.

He told them not to let their hearts be troubled.

He told them that His Father’s house has many rooms.

And then He told them He was going to prepare a place for them, so that where He is, they may be also.

I think sometimes we get so caught up trying to determine every detail of eternity that we miss the heart of what Jesus was saying.

Trust Me.

I’m preparing something for you.

You are going to be with Me.

And what God has prepared for His children will not somehow be poorer, colder or less beautiful than the best things we have experienced here.

God is the One who invented love.

God is the One who invented companionship.

God is the One who created the bond between people and the animals entrusted to their care.

And the God preparing eternity for us knows exactly how deeply we have loved.

Hope Is Not the Same Thing as Doctrine

Maybe that’s where I land on this question.

There is a difference between biblical doctrine and biblical hope.

I cannot teach:

“The Bible promises that every pet goes to Heaven.”

It doesn’t say that.

But I can say:

The Bible tells me God loves His creation.

The Bible tells me animals are His creatures and under His providential care.

The Bible tells me creation itself will be liberated from decay.

The Bible shows me animals in prophetic pictures of God’s restored kingdom.

The Bible tells me God will create a new heaven and a new earth.

And the Bible tells me that the One preparing that eternity for me is Jesus.

That’s enough for me to hope.

So, Will I See My Dog Again?

If you asked me personally:

“Sherri, do you think I will see my dog again?”

I would probably reach over and take your hand and tell you:

I don’t know for certain. But I believe you are allowed to hope.

I cannot give you a chapter and verse promising that your particular dog will come running toward you someday.

But I can point you toward the character of the God who made that dog.

The God who knew that puppy before you ever saw it.

The God who created its funny personality.

The God who knew exactly which family it would belong to.

The God who watched every ordinary Tuesday afternoon when that dog was curled up beside you.

The God who knew how much you would love it.

And the God who knew how much it would hurt when you had to say goodbye.

I trust that God with the animals I have loved.

And I trust Him with eternity.

Maybe someday, when I finally see what Jesus meant when He said He had gone to prepare a place for me, I will discover that some of the things I loved here were merely little glimpses of the goodness waiting there.

And wouldn’t it be just like our Father to have a few wonderful surprises waiting for His children?

Until then, I will hold tightly to what Scripture actually promises, leave what it doesn’t explain in the hands of God, and allow my heart to hope.

Because the Bible begins with a beautiful creation filled with animals.

And when God gives us glimpses of creation restored…

the animals are still there.

And somehow, I find that very comforting. ❤️