Live Online Training
Channel your passion for animals and the planet into a caring and supportive vocation
Program is offered annually.
Applications for 2026 are open!
Animal chaplains provide support for both animals and humans by using ritual, ceremony, and the tools of spiritual companionship. Our training program helps you fulfill your heart’s call to honor and celebrate the lives of all species, including how to companion them through joys and challenges.
Our program is non-denominational and does not require students to have a specific religious or spiritual outlook. It will, though, prepare you to work with a diverse set of belief systems, so that you can support people regardless of their own outlook.
Scroll down for an overview of the program. Click-through to view full program information and program costs. And feel free to contact us with any questions or schedule a consult with our program director by clicking below. We'd love to get to know you and help you get to know us.
How the Program Works
Animal Chaplaincy Training is available in three 3-month courses which culminate in ordination as an Animal Chaplain. Participants can choose 3-month, 6-month,and 9-month durations. Choose the option that best fits your desired commitment and learning outcomes. The program begins each September and student learn together in a supportive cohort, with courses offered consecutively. Each course is a pre-requisite for the next.
Training includes live classes (available from anywhere in the world via Zoom) with our faculty and guest expert speakers. The program also features curated reading and reflection, film discussions, peer-supported practice groups, 1-on-1 mentoring, and community-based experiential sessions. A year-end optional in-person retreat is offered.
Curriculum Overview
Course 1
Foundation Course
An experiential survey of practices and methods for addressing the spiritual needs of animals and humans who live or work with animals.
September - November
$850
Course 2
Tools of Animal Chaplaincy
Building on the learnings of the foundations course, this course explores the human-animal bond more deeply, and helps you learn practices for helping animals (and their humans) through life's transitions. Also includes an introduction to planetary ethics.
December - February
Prerequisite: Course 1
$1000
Course 3
Ordination Practicum
Expanding the knowledge and skills developed in the foundations course and tools of animal chaplaincy course, you'll now tread more deeply in the area of bereavement care, learn to companion people of different faith traditions / belief systems, and work with our faculty to develop a plan for doing the work you feel called to do in the world.
March - June
Prerequisites: Course 1 & 2
$1000
Total program fees for the entire Ordained Animal Chaplain program $2850
What You'll Learn
Our curriculum combines chaplaincy fundamentals and bereavement basics with best practices from the innovative fields of interspirituality, humane education, animal theology, nature spirituality, and human-animal studies.
We offer a flexible program that develops the professional skills you need to:
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Expand your healing business to include conscious and compassionate life transitions for animals and the humans who love them
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Know what to do and say to help people navigate grief and loss in a meaningful way
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Lead individuals and groups in interspecies practices designed to increase well-being and compassion
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Develop creative rituals to support individuals, animal sanctuaries, nonprofits, veterinary practices, meditation centers, yoga programs, or religious communities
Our Faculty
The Animal Chaplaincy Training program is led by Dr. Sarah A. Bowen, DMin, MSc, an
ordained interfaith/interspiritual minister, animal chaplain, anthrozoologist, and executive director of Compassion Consortium's Animal Chaplaincy Training Program.
Especially interested in the intersection of spiritual values with animal welfare, Sarah is a fierce advocate for all creatures, teaching interspecies mindfulness practices, working with humans around the grief and loss of companion animals, loving up animals in shelters, and providing wildlife struck by cars a sacred sendoff.
Sarah has presented on animal death and interspecies spirituality in a wide range of venues, including the Best Friends National Conference, Chaplaincy Innovation Lab, United Nations World Interfaith Harmony Week, Parliament of the World’s Religions, Compassion Arts Festival, Pace E Bene’s Campaign Nonviolence Action Week, Spiritual Directors International, and on numerous spirituality, animal advocacy, and conservation podcasts.
An award-winning author, her latest book is titled Sacred Sendoffs: An Animal Chaplain’s Advice for Surviving Animal Loss, Making Life Meaningful, and Trying to Heal the Planet. (April 2022, Monkfish Publishing). Sarah is a columnist for Spirituality & Health Magazine and her work has been featured in Parabola, Tricycle: The Buddhist Review, Light of Consciousness, Elephant Journal, mindbodygreen, Religious Dispatches, Religion News Service, AARP, and a wide range of spirituality media. Sarah was also interviewed by a RNS Vatican news desk reporter for her response to Pope Francis’ suggestion that living with cats and dogs is “selfish.”
She holds a BA in Human Ecology from Michigan State University, a MA in Religious Studies and DMin in Chaplaincy (specializing in the intersection of religion/spirituality, chaplaincy, and animals), from Chicago Theological Seminary, an Alt M.Div from One Spirit Interfaith Seminary, and an MSc in Anthrozoology from Canisius University. Her Doctoral research was the first to map the field of interspecies chaplaincy. She is a Fellow at the Oxford Centre for Animal Ethics, the world's first academy dedicated to the ethical enhancement of the status of animals.
Sarah is also a faculty member at One Spirit Interfaith Seminary in New York City and Omega Institute of Holistic Studies in New York's Hudson Valley region.
The full ACT team includes a wide variety of program support staff, adjunct presenters, guest conversationalists, and panel discussions with experts in the fields of Chaplaincy, Animal Behavior, Animal Ethics, and professional animal chaplaincy practice.