Fourteen dogs both great and small, and one guinea pig named Snickers. The Lord God blessed them all.

It was the annual Blessing of the Animals in the courtyard of St. Paul’s Episcopal, a family and friends event traditionally held near the Oct. 4 Feast Day of St. Francis of Assisi who is the patron saint of animals. Our Lady of Perpetual Help Catholic Church, First Methodist Church in Salem and other churches in the Roanoke Valley held similar blessings for dogs, cats and other pets and their people. The Methodist Church even had a tortoise – and a hare, a pet white bunny rabbit.

At the Oct. 7 event at St. Paul’s, Snickers the tricolor guinea pig gnawed a carrot but eventually became understandably nervous and stomped one foot at being carried in a cardboard box instead of relaxing in his cage with owner Gracie Michael at the home of the Chris Michael family. Chris Tucker and grandson Carson Tucker, 12, brought up Carson’s family dog, Carly, and his grandparents’ dog Addie.

“I think all the dogs behaved really well,” said Chris Tucker. Benny and Carole Goodyear waited their turn with their blonde therapy dogs Sarah and Daisy as they sat in the shade on the church’s playground. John Hall led goldendoodle Lily, who is an old hand at the blessing ceremony. Although he has done many blessings of animals in the past at other parishes, this year was a first at St. Paul’s for the Very Rev. Bob Brodie, interim rector.

He prefers sprinkling holy water in the general direction of gathered animals and their 28 people. That came after singing the hymn, “All Things Bright and Beautiful,” and prayers. Brodie blessed individual animals by name as owners brought them forward.

“One year when I was at the Cathedral in St. Louis, three people came riding up on horseback to be blessed, and then rode off. We didn’t know who they were nor where they came from,” he added, but they were welcome at the blessing.