Animal life according Hindu scripture, is but a karmic reaction to the way humans act. Embodied souls pass through many species of life, but only as human beings do they accrue karma, as only in that condition is one's free will fully manifest. With that free will comes responsibility. Humans who misuse their free will have to loose it, at least for a time. Chapter 16 of the Bhagavad Gita describes such human beings as having to take birth in lower species of life. So some souls in human form later take the form of an animal, and the degree of suffering or enjoyment they have in animal life is directly related to what they did in their past human life. Animals cannot create new karma because they are completely controlled by their nature. Similar to criminals incarcerated by the state, souls present in animal bodies serve out their karmic sentences until they again are eligible for a human form of life, in which they will be given another chance to act responsibly and progress toward liberation. ( this is Hindu belief. You may laugh Didge because it all sounds nonsensical;))
I'm not unfamiliar with the belief -- and I'm not laughing (though if you read my comment below Virginia's answer you'll understand that I was laughing when I asked the question. I believe it's called metempsychosis, or the transmigration of souls. I actually had a friend who held those beliefs and who believed that her dogs were so advanced that they were due to become human in the next incarnation. We dog owners are very fond of our animals.
I have a story about those two dogs which I once shared with Virginia. I won't repeat it here, though you'd certainly find it interesting and believable.
Now you got me curious Didge;)) my aunt is a dog lover, she owns one, if it passes away she buys another, she has never been dogless. She always says, the faithfulness a dog displays puts humans in shame, she underwent a surgery and the dog refused to eat because my aunt was on fluids. Seeing my aunt writhing in pain it would shed tears....I realized then what a dog means to a dog lover!
We love dogs, too, though we'll never own another. My little dog is 17 now and we didn't expect her still to be alive now. If we bought another it would outlive us both and that would be a dreadful thing to do to a dog.
Priest and parson driving on country road hit a rabbit and kill it. Stone dead. Parson pulls up, gets out of car with priest, prays over bunny, then turns back to the car. Priest says, "Just a minute." He pulls out a vial of liquid, sprinkles a few drops on the bunny which then leaps to its feet and sprints off across country. "My word," says parson. "That holy water is powerful stuff." "It wasn't holy water," said the priest. "It was hare restorer."
Veena.K 