Blessing of animals

Ceremonial blessing of companion animals occurs throughout the world,[1] for example, Australia,[2] Canada,[3] Scotland,[4] Spain,[5] and the United States.

[6] Blessing of animals is a religious activity, and occurs broadly across most religions in some form, including, for example, across Christianity,[7] Islam, Judaism,[8] Shinto,[9] Unitarian Universalism,[10] amongst others.

[11] Annually now, on or around October 4, Christians worldwide celebrate the Feast of Saint Francis with a blessing of animals and prayers for creation.

The Jewish ceremony is often performed on the seventh day of Passover (in the spring) as a celebration of the Hebrews’ (and their animals’) emancipation from slavery in Egypt more than 3,000 years ago.

Many Jewish congregations schedule blessings of the animals after the High Holy Days, with ceremonies around the second weekly Torah portion of the Jewish Year, the Parashat Noach, the portion about Noah and the ark, the saving of both humans and other animals, they also being gifts from God.

A very small sample of these include: The Lorscher Bienensegen, believed to date back to the 9th century, is a Christian bee-keeping prayer written in Old High German to bring honey bees back to their hives in good health, and may arise from earlier Anglo-Saxon and apparently pagan "For a Swarm of Bees" in pre-Christian Germanic areas.

Blessing of the Animals Mural, Mexican Consul, Los Angeles
Blessing of the Animals on St. Francis' Day at an Episcopal church in Lincoln, Nebraska
Elvis Best "read" the Torah at his Bark Mitzvah in 2007.
Blessing of cars, horses, and vehicles in front of the church of San Pedro de Santa Bárbara de Heredia, Costa Rica
Saint Anthony Abbot Blessing the Animals, the Poor, and the Sick
The blessing of a pet dog.
The blessing of a working animal, a military dog.