Rand Alcorn answers the question, "Why was meat first given to people to eat?"

I grew up with a Golden Retriever, a great breed. When I was a boy, my golden, Champ, used to crawl in my sleeping bag when I spent the night in the back yard (watching the stars and reading comic books with a flashlight). Nanci and I love dogs. We enjoyed this video, and hope you do, too.

Randy Alcorn asnwers the question, "What is the Christian worldview in regard to suffering?" on Mid-Morning with Lynne Ford.

Picture a single breath escaping your mouth on a cold day and disappearing into the air. Life here is brief. It is like a dot, which begins and ends and is brief. But from that dot proceeds a line that will go on forever. Death is not a wall but a doorway.

A message preached by John Wesley November 30, 1781
(With inserted comments and summaries by Randy Alcorn)

There is no indication that animals have eternal souls. However, God is perfectly capable of recreating (not the same as resurrecting) an animal who has died. 

Throughout Scripture we read that animals praise God. I don't know exactly how animals praise God, but our inability to understand it shouldn't keep us from believing it.

All these questions are addressed in Randy Alcorn's book Heaven (Tyndale, 2004). Most of them have clear, though not comprehensive, biblical answers. The others that don't have clear answers can be intelligently speculated upon, based on what Scripture does tell us.

Here are photos of some of the more bizarre looking animals God has made. Some make me smile, revealing God’s sense of humor and delight. Some just make me shake my head and wonder at His creativity.