(by CODY CLARK - Daily Herald) -- So your dog can fetch a stick. Big deal. Brad Page's dog can officiate at a wedding.

It sounds like a joke, and it kind of is. Page, a 55-year-old mortgage broker who lives in Highland, doesn't actually believe that Tyker, his 4-year-old Miniature Schnauzer, has any real ministerial authority. Tyker does, however, have an honest-to-gosh ministerial license, as well as a Sunday-best wedding suit and a Web site, PetWeds.com, through which people can receive a document certifying the marriage of their pets.

He even has a 21-member spiritual advisory board.

(Tyker has the authority, technically, to marry humans. Not that he ever would -- Page said his services are strictly for animal kind, and strictly for entertainment purposes.)

"Brad is one of the cleverest people I've ever met, and he's always doing something funny," said Maren Mouritsen, Page's neighbor and a former administrator at Brigham Young University.

The Rev. Tyker's path to the ministry was a serendipitous one. Page said it all came together after he learned that a friend of his had been asked to officiate at a wedding. Not only that, but the friend had obtained the proper religious credentials free of charge -- also free of study, training and, according to Page, spiritual inclination -- by visiting the Web site of the California-based Universal Life Church.

"When he told me about it, I said, 'If you can do it, my dog can do it,' " Page said. "So I went on the same site and got Tyker ordained."

Simple as that?

"I told my wife about it and we basically laughed it off," said Page. Later that night, however, he found himself fretting over whether his actions had been irreverent. So he looked up the ULC Web site again (www.ulc.net), intending to contact the church and apologize.

What he found instead was the ULC site's "online confessional." "I found out I could get forgiveness for all my sins," he said, "so I figured I'd get forgiveness for that, too."

As for Tyker's chosen ministry, Page said he got the idea from an Internet pop-up window advertising "PetMeds." "I just turned the M upside down and said, 'He could do that.' "

The road to ordination

The Universal Life Church, established in 1959, ordains thousands of ministers each year and estimates its worldwide membership to be about 18 million strong. Church president Andre Hensley, the son of founder Kirby J. Hensley, said that the ULC adheres to the teaching given in the 16th verse of the 15th chapter of the gospel of St. John in the New Testament, in which Jesus tells his followers that, "Ye have not chosen me, but I have chosen you, and ordained you."

"Once you feel you have a calling to be ordained," Hensley said, "we accept that and we ordain you according to your request."

The ULC's ordination, in other words, is essentially a formality, putting onto paper what God has already put into your heart. A formality, that is, that confers legal authority to perform weddings, baptize and conduct funerals and worship services.

Hensley said the cost of printing and mailing thousands of free certificates is subsidized by the donations of church members. (Additional income is derived from the sale of personally inscribed religious items, such as Bibles or prayer books, to newly enfranchised ministers.) And he said that "two or three" times each year, the church finds out about a gag ordination such as Tyker's.

"We try to filter those out as much as we can," he said. "There's only so much we can do. We have to take it on faith that people are doing the right thing."

The ULC doesn't pursue legal action against quasi-fraudulent clergymen, unless criminal activity is involved. So the Rev. Tyker is virtually assured of retaining his spot among the ranks of ordained ULC ministers, a body that allegedly includes -- according to articles from a variety of sources -- Hugh Hefner, all four Beatles, Tony Danza, "Survivor" host Jeff Probst and filmmaker John Waters, among others.

(Hensley did say that the most blatantly irreligious ordinations are deleted when they're discovered, though he responded good-naturedly to the revelation of a canine ULC minister. "I guess animals need a form of religion, too," he said.)

Page has no plans to retire Tyker from the ministry and said that Tyker's daughter, Tizzie, would probably assume her sire's responsibilities if he died. "As far as I know," Page said, "it doesn't matter if you're male or female to be a dog minister."

'I now pronounce you ... '

Business through PetWeds.com has been sporadic but enthusiastic. "Sometimes I get several requests a day," Page said, "sometimes I go weeks without any."

One satisfied customer is a Kentucky dog breeder who passes the marriage information along to people who purchase his pups. "He says it's been good for marketing," Page said.

The Rev. Tyker is very open-minded, having given his blessing to a variety of interspecies unions, along with the usual dog-to-dog and cat-to-cat requests. Page said that PetWeds.com has issued dog-to-duck and horse-to-cow marriage certificates, among others.

Which is not to say than any proposal will be met with full ministerial approval. "I've had some where they want to know if he'll marry people to their pets," Page said. "I said no. My hypocrisy only goes so far."

(Revenue from the site hasn't caused Page to quit his day job -- though he will be hiking his fees in the near future on the advisement of California-based consulting groups who have big ideas for Tyker that Page is not at liberty to disclose.)

And though Tyker isn't directly involved in most of the business handled through PetWeds.com, he has officiated pet nuptials in person, with Page acting as his spokesman, on a few select occasions.

After he was asked to tape Tyker in the performance of his ministerial duties, Page arranged a horse-to-horse marriage with his neighbors.

"Our mare was getting ready to foal; we figured we had to have a shotgun wedding," said Frank Cowan, who carried an actual shotgun when he escorted Flash, a paint stallion, to meet his blushing bride Starbuck, a buckskin mare.

Cowan, a business consultant, said he sees nothing irreverent about what was transacted. "It was all done in fun and jest," he said. "We got our certificate and everything. Tyker's paw print is on there."

Page said he fields the occasional complaint -- "Some people say I'm being cruel to my dog by making him do this" -- but that most people seem to be on a less judgmental wavelength.

"For every one hate mail," he said, "I've gotten 100 from people who love what we're doing."