Pets in heaven? No one knows and religions don't agree.

Ruby, an 18-month-old boxer, was tearing it up with other dogs at the Sandy Paws Dog Park in Jacksonville Beach on Wednesday while her human companion, Don Christian, watched with a smile.

She thinks she runs this place, and she kinda runs the house, too," said Christian, 55, of Ponte Vedra Beach.

But will Ruby and other critters be running around in heaven someday, as well? It's a question being asked a lot since fire destroyed most of the Jacksonville Humane Society on Saturday, killing 85 animals.

Christian was quick to answer that yes, Ruby and other animals have souls and will romp around with their owners in the afterlife.

"I think all pets have a personality and bond with people. How can you not think they have souls?" he said.

Polls show that most Americans agree with Christian.

Nearly 70 percent of respondents to a Beliefnet.com survey said animals have souls, compared with 12 percent who said only some animals do and 10 percent who said animals do not have souls.

A 2004 ABC News poll reported that 43 percent of all respondents said all pets go to heaven, while 47 percent of pet owners said animals live on in eternity.

Whether you agree may depend on your take on Scripture and even the religion you belong to, said Paul Waldau, an assistant professor at Tufts University in Massachusetts and director of its Center for Animals and Public Policy.

Hinduism and Buddhism recognize a divine spark or soul in all creatures, while Judaism, Christianity and Islam generally dismiss the idea that animals have an afterlife, said Waldau, who writes about religious attitudes toward animals.

The Rev. Timothy Folds, senior pastor at Fleming Island Baptist Church, quotes Genesis as saying God breathed souls into human beings but doesn't mention the same process for animals.

"Nowhere in Scripture do you find animals being equal with man, and I know, based on Scripture, that there is no indication there is a doggie heaven or a heaven for animals," the Southern Baptist preacher said.

The Catholic Church teaches that after death, "the dog or cat no longer exists, that's all," said the Rev. Edward Booth, pastor at San Juan del Rio Parish in Switzerland.

But the Catholic Church has a rich tradition of prayers and blessings for animals, he added, to protect pets and to give thanks to God for their presence in people's lives.

Animals in Judaism have souls, but it's unclear if they will be in heaven with human beings, said Rabbi Nochum Kurinsky, spiritual leader of Chabad at the Beaches in Ponte Vedra Beach.

"The souls [of animals] live on, they are eternal, but ... I don't know if they have a heaven per se," Kurinsky said.

In Buddhism, all living beings are considered to possess a "spark of life, or Buddha nature," that continues from lifetime to lifetime through reincarnation, said Michael Turnquist, director of Karma Thegsum Choling Jacksonville, a Tibetan Buddhist center in Riverside.

Waldau said even within Christianity there are plenty who disagree with the humans-only take on heaven.

One of them is Craig Williams of Neptune Beach, a dog lover and Methodist who said the Bible gives clues that animals will be in heaven.

"In Revelation, it says Christ comes riding back on a white horse," Williams, 59, said. "If there are no animals in heaven, where does the horse come from?"

And God is simply too loving to separate people from their pets in heaven, said Sandy Golding, a Catholic and co-founder of Sandy Paws Dog Park.

"To me, it wouldn't be heaven without all your [animal] friends there, too," Golding, 44, said.

But David Zimmerman, a Lutheran from Jacksonville Beach, doesn't buy it.

Zimmerman, 48, said he brings his dogs, Savannah and Chancey, to the dog park every day but they won't be going with him to heaven.

"If we say dogs are in, wouldn't we also have to say that cows and ferrets go to heaven, and whales?"

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