I went hunting for a dog as a companion for my son. He had checked online and at the local shelter for the particular breed and age that he wanted. He lives on a farm so the dog would have a lot of freedom but also needed to be reigned in from getting into danger. We went to a couple of shelters looking for the dogs he had chosen as a possibility but I saw something at one of the shelters that caught my eye ... a dog drop-off.
The dog drop-off was for those who wanted to get rid of their pet and couldn't find, or didn't want to find, a new home for them. The drop-off looked like a bank deposit door. You would walk up to the metal door and slide it open, put your pet inside and slide the door closed. The pet disappears into the building. A sign tells you what to do, how to do it, and what will happen to the pet if no new home is found. I suppose the dog drop-off is more humane than simply bringing the pet out into the desert, or using it for target practice, or giving it to those dark characters that train it for fighting but ... something seems weird about it.
Maybe it's weird because it seemed like a bank teller drive through ... I was almost expecting a receipt to pop out of a slot as the dog disappears.
Maybe it's weird because in our throw-away society it could have seemed like a garbage disposal of some kind.
Maybe it's weird because in our society of convenience it is simply a convenient way to make an inconvenience disappear.
Maybe it's not weird at all and just me, the observer, is a half-bubble off center.
As a pastor I get asked quite often if our pets will be in heaven with us. My response is that scripture tells us ALL of creation will be renewed at the end of time. Animals are a part of that creation and will certainly be a part of heaven. Scripture also tells us that creation itself (all creatures) are groaning in anticipation of that day, they can't wait for all that is wrong to be made right in whatever capacity they recognize it. And that includes those dogs that just had the metal door closed on them.