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So I was in a shul today and the rav spoke about if you have pet food that’s chametz how do you feed your pet on Pesach and one of his answers was sell your pet
Does this make any sense to people in the cr?
Personally, I set my pet loose and just get a new one after Pesach.
About the rabbis answer, if you sell your pet who will feed the pet its chometz food, now that the pet is owned by a goy.
In any event, what kind of rabbi is this where he has congregants that commonly have pets, so much so that he has to speak in shul about this question? Very few frumme Yidden have pets.
since my kids spend the whole pesach complaining they have nothing to eat , can I sell them too?
My pet is a cream cheese bagel. I don’t sell it. I make sure to finish eating it before the zman
Oops.
When reviewing the laws about Pesach, I thought it said you were supposed to EAT your pets before the end of the fourth hour. 🙁
Yes, it makes sense, if your pet’s food is mamash chometz. You give or sell the pet *and* the food to a goy, and now you are doing him a favor, feeding his food to his animal. Since the food is presumably not anything you would ever dream of popping into your mouth, no matter how absent-minded you are, it’s not a problem to store it on your property and use it in this way.
But if the food is not mamesh chometz but only a mixture of chometz, i.e. if you look at the ingredients you find that wheat is down the list, and therefore is less than 50% of the total, then you don’t need to go through any of this. You can keep the animal and the food, and feed it as normal. As far as I can tell, this includes ALL BRANDS OF DRY CAT FOOD. I have never seen a brand of dry cat food where grain is a majority of the mixture. Even if there is any grain it’s way down the ingredient list. So there’s no shayla, it’s completely muttar to possess and use it. Of course it’s forbidden to eat it, not only on Pesach but all year, but you would never do that.
“You’re considered a shomer chinam so have to take care of the goy’s pet”
You’re saying if a Yid is a “shomer chinum” for a goy’s pet, he can feed chometz to the pet on Pesach?
But let’s be honest
Whereas when I sell my chametz I completely have in mind to sell it and would have no problem parting with it.
How many pet owners actually would do that?
Which makes the sale a farceGut Yom Tov to all!!
In a more serious vein – since I have pets I’ve had to research what I’m allowed to give them. The Star-K (based in Baltimore) has a detailed discussion on pet food in its Pesach section. I think the CRC has, too. So you don’t have to give away your pet armadillo, you can just look up what kind of food you’re permitted to give it. 🙂
And for those deprived folk who live in NYC – many of us out-of-towners have pets. Especially if you have a yard, pets are one of the perks of the OOT life-style. And if you don’t have a yard, you can always have fish – or an iguana. But don’t park your pet with someone without consulting your rav about whether it’s permitted. Ownership has to be really transferred. and make sure the person knows how to care for it.
A gut Moed to all!
Owning a pet is not a yiddishe thing.
Our thing is to have children.
We have 4 dogs and two cats………………
We don’t sell them for Pesach.
We don’t use commercial pet food any time of the year.During Pesach, the dogs eat a mix of sweet potatoes and Turkey with carrots mixed in.
The cats eat bits of fish, turkey, chicken or beef, chopped up with vegetables from the soup pot.All of them like gefilte fish, particularly Ungar’s .
CTLAWYER,
You feed your animals store-bought gefilte fish?!
Oy. I thought you were better than that.
Joseph, what do the children have?
RY23: Dolls.
@Meno
Our dogs have allergies and can’t eat grain.
Our home-made fish has matzo meal in it (we eat gebrokhts)
The Ungar fish has no wheat and therefore the dogs can eat it.Dolls are more problematic than pets.
Joe
Your arrogance is nausiating…are you the authority on what is “yiddeshe thing”…? MANY frum people have pets…Although with your judgemental atitude they are probably not frum enough for you…Many “frum” people have TVs. Or do any number if inappropriate things that aren’t black and white issurim.
Pets help teach children responsibility, though some dogs think they are the ones with the responsibility to take care of the children.
Joe
Are you comparing having a dog to having a TV? Are you kidding? What issur is there in a dog?? What bad influence does a dog give? Love? Companionship? My dog loves me (as all dogs love their owners) unconditionally without judgement…Something you need to learn badly…OMG…you are so far out of touch its pathetic…Joseph, your ignorance speaks volumes! I have Bli Ayin Harah 6 kids. I also have 5 TV’s. Last year I had 2 of the most loving German Shepards puppies I ever saw living in my backyard pool area. They were given to me by my Rabbi who happens to be more frum than you can ever hope to be, and I don’t even know you! I bought special Kosher LePesach dog food and threw out all other food I had for them. As a matter of fact, I think these dogs had better Midos than you!
“I also have 5 TV’s. Last year I had 2 of the most loving German Shepards puppies”
Dogs, TV… exactly my point.
“My dog loves me (as all dogs love their owners) unconditionally without judgement…”
Try loving Jewish children instead of dogs.
“who happens to be more frum than you can ever hope to be, and I don’t even know you… As a matter of fact, I think these dogs had better Midos than you!”
That’s it with pet owners; they admit they don’t even know someone yet make all sort of judgemental comments like whose more frum and has more middos than someone they don’t even know.
It comes from loving an animal instead of a Yid.
Joseph, if people love Jewish children “instead of dogs”, they are lowering Jewish children to the level of a dog.
RY23, I must commend you for recognizing that the level of a dog is low and that lowering oneself to love a dog as one might love a child is a matter of lowering oneself. This is indeed the point that needed to be brought out.
I love my dogs, I also love chicken soup, chopped liver, and swimming in my pool.
This is NOT the same ‘love’ I have for my children and grandchildren.
However, it is a level above ‘like.’It is nonsense to belittle someone who says they love their pets by comparing that to loving Jewish children.
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Life is the country is different than in the city.
I live in a small town where everyone lives in a single family home. There are about 13,000 households and more than 13,000 licensed dogs (per our Town Clerk). Many are not licensed. We have 4 dogs. Our shul Rav has two. I don’t know any local non-senior citizen frum Yidden who do not have a dog. Many had them when they were younger and did not replace them because the senior Yidden in town tend to be snow birds and many have Florida condos that do not permit dogs.When my parents OBM lived in NYC, prior to 1950 they did not have dogs, neither did their parents. They were not suitable to life in a six story apartment building and required walks on leashes, Shabbos being a real problem. As soon as they moved to CT and had a single family house with a fenced yard they got a dog. All one had to do was open the door and let the dog run in the yard. No leash, no Shabbos issues.
I am in my mid-60s, the only time I did not have a dog was when I spent a year in Yeshiva in Brooklyn after yeshiva high school in New Haven, and college. Mrs. CTL is of a similar age and has always had dogs.
All of our children and grandchildren have dogs, all live in single family homes.CTLAWYER: Do you hate cats?
CTL: NYC Goyim are very big on having dogs. City life apparently poses no obstacle to their dog ownership. Compare that to the dog ownership rate of their fellow New Yorkers who are frum Yidden. It is like night and day. Whereas a significant portion of NYC Goyim and irreligious Jews are pet-owners, religious Jewish New Yorkers in the five boroughs have an insignificant rate of dog and cat ownership.
@DovidBT
If you read this thread from the start you would have seen that we have two cats.
I like the cats, love the dogs. The cats are not as social as the dogs. They tend to be nocturnal and keep to themselves.
There are four dog beds in my home office. As I type this, all are occupied.@Joseph,
Did you pay attention to my remarks about the Shabbos issues of having a dog in a community that requires they be walked on leashes, never mind requiring to you pick up their leavings. Many Frum Yidden I know don’t hold by eruvim in NYC.Why is no one discussing cats? Cats are also cute, lovable and furry. And they also have chometz issues with commercial cat food.
Yes, frum people also have cats (especially those who tend to get mice). Why are dogs an issue and not cats? Because you don’t have to walk them on Shabbos? There seems to be some major league discrimination here. (And what about hamsters, gerbils, birds and fish? Are those also forbidden because it’s a “goyishe zach?”)
@Midwest2
Read my posts on this thread. We have 2 cats, don’t use commercial cat food.That said, chometz cat food is a bigger issue than dog food.
Humans don’t eat dog food. BUT, every few years you’ll see an article in the general newspapers about impoverished elderly people who buy canned cat food because they can’t afford human tuna, etc.
Cats don’t need to be walked on a leash with their owner following with plastic bags and a pooper scooper.
How degrading for a human being to have to scoop up from the streets a dog’s waste. Fech. It is sub-human.
Nice spin on an action that helps us stay humble.
That said, chometz cat food is a bigger issue than dog food.
Humans don’t eat dog food. BUT, every few years you’ll see an article in the general newspapers about impoverished elderly people who buy canned cat food because they can’t afford human tuna, etc.
Are those two statements intended to be related? Surely, someone who eats cat food due to poverty will be unable to observe many mitzvos. Chometz-on-Pesach would not be at the top of the list of their transgressions.
@DovidBT
about 10 years ago I attended a pre-Pesach shiur. The Rav stated that one could have canned chometz dog food using a separate can opener that was simply placed in a zip loc bag and not washed during Pesach, and use plastic disposable spoons and bowls. One could not use chometz canned cat food, becxause some human eat it. Instead one should buy Pesachdicke tuna for the cats.
I laugh, because if ever anyone served our kids chunk light tuna instead of solid white albacore they’d refer to it as cat food and not eat it.In my opinion, solid white albacore is only edible if flavored with some lemon and a hint of black pepper.
In the wild, the grey wolf, which is the closest wild animal to domesticated dogs, does not typically consume chometz. This is related to its lack of thumbs and resultant inability to bake bread.
CTLawyer – sorry I missed your post about cats – I think it was still in moderation when I posted. Cats are certainly easier to keep if you don’t have a yard for a dog, and they’re certainly first-class pets.
I don’t get the bit about having pets not being a “Jewish thing.” Maybe it wasn’t when people had just gotten off the boat and needed all their money for merely surviving. But times change. Twenty years ago sushi wasn’t a “Jewish thing” and now you can’t escape from it. (And I hate the stuff.) There certainly was no kosher Chinese in Europe. My Sefardi friends eat rice on Pesach, which I would never do. So why are we telling other people what is and isn’t “Jewish?”
Most of us normal, broad minded people understand that. There is one self appointed judge above – Joseph – who thinks he has been annointed to pass judgement on Rabbonim who are helping their congregants keep Halacha, and on the rest of us for not being Jewish enough based on HIS standards. He is probably (just a guess) an Elitist Kollel guy who thinks he knows all there is to know about who is Jewish enough….nausiating…!
It hasn’t been scientifically proven that Joseph is a cat, but cats do tend to dislike dogs.
I can’t believe that after all these years I’ve finally been figured out. It’s time for me to get a signature like WolfishMusings has.
Elitist Kollel Guy
Elitist Kollel guy
haha painting that kettle black with a broad brushPersonally I think there are numerous halachic and hashkofic problems with dog ownership
Though I can see reasons why people should get one (example, service dogs) the problems in a typical city house outweigh the benefits
Halachically a person is responsible for the actions of his pet
Which means
Every time a little kid walks by a house and gets scared by a barking dog that’s on you. Every time a dog leaves a deposit on the street that damages or causes inconvenience that’s on you. Dogs in the neighborhood I work in have changed my entire way of walking down the street. The problem is so prevalent that you must look constantly down to avoid the land mines . My staff has thrown out numerous rugs from stuff tracked in by patients.
What about making a Bracha around a dog. My neighbor had one for years. The thing produced enough methane to power the electricity of a small city .
Not to mention how degrading it is to literally be a personal pooper scooper to an animal.
I don’t get it.Aside from the whether or not one should own a dog or not, it seems to me that there is no problem with its eating non chometz food on Pesach. So don’t sell your dog to a goy for Pesach and feed it non chometz food. Problem solved. As for cleaning up after your dog on Shabbos – I don’t know how one can do that if there is no eruv. I personally think that dogs are smelly and I wouldn’t want to own one. Now fish are another story – they are nice quiet clean pets.
So the following is true
After my last post I went outside to get into my car
I was parked on an avenue (drivers side facing the street)
Some dog owner had allowed his dog to use my street-side, drivers-side doors as a fire hydrant. Land mines all around the doors. BH, as always, I was looking down and barely missed the deposits. But one unlucky soul was not as fortunate (tell tale treadmark signs)
All the dog lovers here probably feel it’s karma for my last post.
I personally think the Koreans have the only proper hashkafic attitude toward dogs
#feedthehungryinafrica
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