Hilchos Pets | Imamother

amother

Tue, Jun 14 2011, 8:54 pm

No bashing here please.

I did not grow up with pets. Some of the people around me had pets, but I doubt they knew the halachos about what you can do with them on Shabbos. I now live in an apartment building and can't have pets. Honestly, as much as I always wanted a dog as a kid, I now can't envision adding more responsibilities to my plate without it being due to another child! With that said, I love animals and am very grateful when people walking their dogs stop to let my kids (and me!) pet them.

So that's where I'm coming from here. I'm not a pet-hater. But I'm honestly curious. My impression is that animals are muktza on Shabbos. A post on another thread by a dog owner made it seem like yo'ure not allowed to feed them directly on Shabbos either. Can someone enlighten me about "hilchos pets"? And I'm curious about how that applied in the past, to Jews who, let's say, owned a farm with animals on it. (Nowadays too, but years ago I'm assuming they didn't have automated pet feeders.)

TIA!

gp2.0

Fri, Jun 24 2011, 12:38 pm

AFAIK you are allowed to do whatever is necessary to ensure the wellbeing and comfort of the animal.

So let's say you have a pet bird, you can refill its food and water but not touch it.

But a cow can be milked because not milking it would leave it in pain.

I'm not sure where a dog falls on this spectrum. If you have a yard then obviously on Shabbos you can just let the dog out on its own to do its business. However I wonder if it's permitted to play with the dog on shabbos. I don't know. And if you don't have a yard, then the dog would need to be walked. I suppose it is permitted if there's no other choice, but it's possible some hold that halachically one shouldn't have a dog unless they have a yard for Shabbos.

What if the dog approaches you and touches you and wants affection? Are you not allowed to touch it?

I think all the halachic questions that arise is why many jewish people just don't have pets at all. Working animals and pets fall into different classes.

Chocoholic

Fri, Jun 24 2011, 1:13 pm

There are many people (including your truly) whose rabbonim hold that pet pets like cats and dogs are NOT muktza. They are company. They don't work for us. Spending a lot of time cuddling and hugging my furry baby is a huge ones shabbos for him and I.

earthmama

Mon, Jun 27 2011, 1:41 pm

Our rav holds that playing with some pets is part of thair care.we asked about dogs specifically and based on his answer we touch dogs and our cat on Shabbos but not the bird.There seem to be various opinions on this of course...

shoshina

Mon, Jun 27 2011, 2:27 pm

Our Rav has said we can play with our dog on Shabbos, but I only walk him where he is allowed to be off-leash so I do not carry a leash unnecessarily on Shabbos. As I posted elsewhere, I have an automatic pet feeder and waterer that I use anyway because we work long hours, and he is piddle pad trained for Shabbos and for weekday emergencies. I find him super, super relaxing and good company and he makes Shabbos so nice, especially on long summer shabbos afternoons where he gets to run around in the park to his hearts content.

finprof

Tue, Jul 05 2011, 10:18 pm

I was taught that your own pet isn't mukzah and that feeding and walking them was part of caring for them. I could see how walking would be an issue w/o an eruv though!

ima bima

Tue, Jul 05 2011, 10:27 pm

We had a cat for a while. I had heard that touching your own pet is ok on shabbos but when we asked our rav he said that it is a problem. We ended up getting rid of the cat because he would jump up on the shabbos table and my kids would get all excited about trying to lead him off the table by lulling him with a string. What a scene!!!