Gedolim vs. Cats and Dogs

My mashgiach in Miami had a dog

Rav Shimon Schwab’s son Reb Yosef used to have a dog named Twinkles. His grandchildren would laugh about how when he would visit them, he would sometimes be more excited about petting the dog than seeing his kids.

only chareidim are affraid about dogs. A dog is sometimes better then a human being
he he knows exactly who is a mensch and who not.

Charlie: When I was growing up in Pelham Parkway, there were tons of birds (not just pigeons) especially when you headed up towards Pelham Bay. When I went back a few years ago, not much diversity beyond the pigeons. I suspect the proliferation of feral cats may have some role.

To Yserbius 123: Your comment about the gadol who was happier to greet the dog than his grandchildren reminded me that when I and my siblings were adolescents with a dog, he greeted my bubbe more enthusiastically than we did.

Catch yourself, I understand what you are saying. We do have to realize that animals are not humans. That being said, i think it is up to every person to decide for themselves how to make that distinction. We made several funerals for various hamsters, and I think it was a great way to help our children properly express their sadness. No, animals are not a recliner, and allowing a child to speak about and mourn the loss of something loved is definitely appropriate, and healthy, in my eyes. Of course, I wouldn’t say Tehillim at such a funeral….. We have lots of animals including a leopard gecko
, and the only animals not accepted in the charedi world are cats and dogs,,,, go figure!

Feral cats need to be rounded up when they threaten endangered species. But both the pigeons and rats in North America are themselves invasive destructive species not native to the Americas. Cats are about the only thing that works to control rats and peregrine falcons are the only thing other than cats that control pigeons.

Common Saychal: Where can you find pigeon (aka “squab”) with a good chasideshe shechita? The plumba is likely to be larger than the bird?

Ghatorah: Pellah poultry produces squab with a good chasisisher shechita, they also sell duck [not frozen] and goose.

CS: Sadly, Pellah is “sold out” of king pigeons (aka squab) but I’ll keep checking to see when it comes back into stock. In the interim, I placed an order for some of their Duck sausage. I also found the story of their firm’s history fascinating moving the farm and production facilities from the Hamptons on LI when the land became too expensive to the site of an abandoned nuclear power plant in Pennsylvania. Two generations of Cornell U vet school grads run the business. Also, only about 1/3 of the products listed on their website are “kosher” so you have to be careful when ordering.

GH: you must have been on the wrong website, it was more then likely a distributor of Pelleh products, the farm is located in Bethel NY in Sullivan County and is run by a Frum father and son and only deals with Kosher products.
Father himself has a very interesting story, grew up secular and live in Montana for a number of years worked as a park ranger, a logger and number of other none typical jobs, became frum and was a talmud muvak of Rav Shlomo Friefeld ZTL, he built up the farm from scratch.

Dogs (and cats)….
I have found ownership by frum people to be more of a city vs. country thing.
I have never not had dogs, neither has Mrs. CTL. Both Born in CT and lived in single family homes with land.
We both have siblings married to people who came from city apartment buildings who never owned dogs, one had a cat.
Currently we have 4 dogs and 2 cats. One dog died of old age last week, We have an area of our grounds under a large apple tree that is our pet cemetery. The dog was buried there (along side about a dozen other dogs and cats). A flagstone was placed over the grave and sometime next spring I’ll scratch his name and date of death into the stone. This was our second teen aged dog to pass in 6 months. Our grandchildren (along with us) miss them very much. They were very important for the children to have while all here since March due to Ciovid,

Here, walking a dog on Shabbos is not an issue, we open the sliders to one side of our yard and the dogs have a half acre of fence land to run, play and do their business. No walking around with bags and pooper scoopers, just natural fertilizer for their grass play area.

Our shul Rav has two dogs. I don’t know many non-elderly shul members in town without dogs.
That said, If I lived in a high rise apartment building and had to take dogs out for a walk multiple times a day, I doubt I’d own dogs.
Cats, OTOH are lo maintenance. ours are inside cats, never go outside, but do control the field mice problem in the house. With a home more than 200 years old and a stone foundation we do get mice when the weather turns cold, so we have a downstairs cat and an upstairs cat for pest control

Common Saychel: Minks reportedly don’t make good streimlach and as reported yesterday in the NY Post, there have been numerous Covid outbreaks traced to mink farms. The only positive I can think of is to agrivate the PETA types in the neighborhood.

According to Agnon the streimel was a decree from the authorities. They thought that it was degrading to the Jews to wear the fur of a tamei animal.

Dor, no. Have you? Getting back to pets, Rav Eliezer Melamed says is very much in favor of giving them to children as they learn responsibility and mercy. He adds that they are very good for lonely people, especially the elderly. Pet therapy, in fact, is becoming very common.

Common, I think that you mean Cornish hens. If you write it with a small “c” you re saying that they are similar to corn.