About 80 Dunedin pet owners took their pets to church to honour St Francis of Assisi with song and prayer.
Rev Helene Mann invited the pets to introduce themselves and get to know each other.
This lead to an increase in barking from the dog majority, as Lucy, the rabbit, stuck close to her owner Susan Baird.
"It doesn't matter how much noise they make because they are all praising God," Rev Mann said.
The service was also an opportunity to highlight the plight of less fortunate animals, with Otago SPCA senior inspector Steph Saunders speaking about cruelty to animals.
She believed an increase in violence within the community resulted in an increase in violence towards animals.
The Royal New Zealand SPCA yesterday released its latest List of Shame.
The list was compiled between last October and September.
"This is, in many ways, our most appalling list yet," Ms Kippenberger said.
"Among the list's most disturbing aspects is the spike in violence towards animals recorded during the holiday season and summer months, with 28 cases of serious cruelty included from that period.
"Yet despite the sickening brutality and sadism revealed, this year's list also provides cause for hope, with a number of notable examples of tougher sentencing, which suggest that at least some of New Zealand's judges are starting to take animal cruelty seriously," she said.
Ms Kippenberger described the sentence imposed on 19-year-old Dunedin man, Jeffrey Hurring, as standing out from others on the list.
Hurring received the longest custodial term - 12 months, subsequently reduced to 10 - handed down for animal cruelty in New Zealand, after pleading guilty to the brutal killing of Diesel, a Jack Russell terrier.
