WITH reference to your article (LET, August 10), as the person who blessed all animals and their owners at the Lions Gala, at Witton Park, Blackburn, on Saturday, I am alarmed at the suggestion that the two dogs I was pictured with are in some way married. They are not.

I spent a considerable amount of time on the day explaining exactly what we were doing there.

The Church does not, nor has ever married animals. We pray for God's blessing on them and their owners, particularly the owners that they may be responsible, and care for them as part of God's creation.

REV CARL SHAEFER, St Jude's Vicarage, Didsbury Street, Blackburn.

Footnote: The Lancashire Evening Telegraph took great pains to make clear that Rev Shaefer had not conducted a wedding for dogs. Our story referred to the fact that the event had been billed in Blackburn Lions Gala programme as a dog wedding, but we reported that what, in fact, had taken place was a blessing - Editor.

Converted for the new archive on 14 July 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.