Can We Teach Animals the Dhamma? I have a dog that i love very much.I don't feel like his a dog.I have a lot of respect for him.And treat him like an old friend.As he is old now.I heard somewhere that animals who hear the Dharma can be reborn as a human??I don't know if that's true or which sutta it's in.But I have formed a habit of either reading the sutta to him,chanting in Pali,or sometimes just talking to him about the Four Noble Truths.As that's the one thing i want to remember when i die.I know it seems too silly but i just feel like somewhere inside he can understand me.He has a very serene and calm demeanor too.I hope that there is a sutta about animals hearing The Dhamma having a better rebirth,because this dog has qualities that even i as a human being lack.I hope that there is some way to share the greatest gift(The Dhamma) to our animal friends.

Is it true is there a way to benefit animals by helping them come into contact with the Dhamma? Such as teaching them the Dhamma?
There's a Jakarta story of a previous incarnation of the Buddha giving his body to a hungry tigress. The reason for that act was to prevent the tigress eating her cubs, which would have damaged her sila.


  Therefore, I will kill my miserable body by casting it down into the precipice, and with my corpse I shall preserve the tigress from killing her young ones and the young ones from dying by the teeth of their mother.


My mum rescued a stray dog. She (the dog) was initially aggressive to other dogs, but my mum taught her not to be.
My mum also taught her self-restraint: including to not rush to get her dinner immediately, but to wait when the dinner bowl is set on the floor, wait until she is told that she can get it.

I like to think that you're able to help a dog, for example by teaching it some morality. 

In terms of teaching them Dhamma, although they cannot read books I hope they can read you.