Mom of Three with Cockers: May God Bless Clancy , Clarissa, Isabella, Ignatius, Masamora, and Penelope

The feast of St. Francis was celebrated today at a parish close to us. We do not normally attend this parish but decided,since ours didn't offer a blessing of the animals and we now have six wonderful animals whom we loved the idea of having blessed, to visit this parish . At first we were only going to take Clarissa and the puppies because Clancy has a tendency to become territorial of anywhere that he is .From time to time this territorial tendency manifests as aggression. Mike really wanted to include Clancy because he didn't want anyone to think Clarissa was an unwed mother and honestly I felt bad about excluding Clancy so we decided that he could go however he had to stay on a short leash. All went well and we got there but waited in the car until the service began to avoid any confrontation. Once it was time to start we got as far back out of the way as possible. To my surprise Clancy sat down like the perfect cocker spaniel should in church.He even laid down for a few minutes as the service went on. As is Clarissa's nature, after making sure that all the puppies were in the box, she also laid down. It was really peaceful. Then came the time for blessing. Father took the Holy water and the wand and started around to bless each animal. He blessed other dogs, cats, even a turtle. Finally he got to us. Clancy sat like a perfectly trained dog as Father approached him however when father shook the wand to sprinkle Holy water on him, Clancy was not sure what was happening. He so wanted to be good, but wasn't sure if he was going to be hit with the wand. He let out one bark before realizing that the Priest was moving on and that everything was OK. This one bark was enough to cause every human present to explode with laughter. In all my embarrassment I explained that that would be his AMEN. The priest then moved to Clarissa who just looked as though she had been caught in some rain. The puppies were each sprinkled and didn't seem phased at all. What a beautiful ceremony. It ended and we walked to our car amongst all the other owners and animals. Clancy proceeded to the car with the same perfectly trained dog behavior as he maintained during the service. Wow, I said to Mike and the kids when we were all in the car, Clancy was so good ! Yes we all agreed, The lord sure had his hand in this ! We now pray that God will always bless Clancy, Clarissa, Isabella, Ignatius, Masamora, and Penelope. Thank you God for our sweet Cocker Spaniels and thank you St. Francis for the gift of your day for us to receive this wonderful blessing of our family members.