Holy Dogs and AssesAnalysis of animals in the history of the Christian tradition has been exclusively symbolic, but Laura Hobgood Oster utilizes the feminist perspective in her examination of the impact of animal presence. In challenging the metaphoric reading of animals that reinforces human superiority and dominance, Holy Dogs and Asses underscores animal agency. Creatures play various active roles, which Hobgood Oster categorizes as exemplars of piety, sources of