It's a Dog's Pesach
Jerry Seinfeld has a bit where he notes that the dominant life form on Earth would appear to be not humans, but dogs. As he puts it, "Say aliens are watching us from space, and they see two species walking together. One is in front, the other is walking behind and carrying the first one's poop in a bag. Which one would they assume is in charge?"
I thought of another good example which happens to relate to our plans for this weekend. We're going away for Shabbos to a bar mitzvah held in a local hotel, so we made arrangements to "farm out" the kids and Sandy. The kids are each staying at a friend's house, gratis of course, whereas we had to pay for the privilege of boarding Sandy at a kennel for the weekend. So does that mean dogs are more "valuable" than children?
On a somewhat related note, I commented today on Miriam's blog that when I was a kid, I used to wonder whether items that are marked "Kosher for Passover" are automatically "regular" kosher as well? I.e., is Kosher L'Pesach a special subset of Kosher, or does it just mean the item is free of chumetz, but could otherwise be completely traife? My parents assured me that the former was the case. But now there are actually lists of exactly such unkosher, yet passover-kosher items, namely pet foods!
One's animals of course do not need to eat kosher per se; in fact, the Torah specifically states [Exod 22:30] that traife meat is to be "cast to the dogs". However on Pesach, even animals owned by Jews can't be given actual chumetz, since chumetz on Pesach is not only forbidden to consume but also to derive benefit from, including feeding it to one's pets. So based on the list linked above, we just bought Sandy a bunch of cans of Mighty Dog Chicken, Eggs and Bacon, especially for Pesach! There you go - kosher l'pesach traife!
So it will be a dog's life this Pesach at our house - lucky dog!
posted by Elie @ 3/23/2007 10:32:00 AM -
7 Comments:
This is just reminding me to get kosher lepesach food for Dorothy the fish how annoying.
Does Sandy normally eat wet dog food or dry dog food? Max, and Tyson before him, are dry dog food eaters, so we don't convert them for Pesach. Minced cooked turkey or chicken is primarily the Pesachdik food for our pet.
The whole dog food recall has me worried. We use Kirkland (from Costco). So far it hasn't shown up on the lists, so I think we're OK.
On my old blog, I wrote about when one of the kids asked if a dog could carry money on Shabbos. Can you give the dog your wallet to carry? (Where you would find this wonder dog that will carry a wallet without chewing it, I don't know.)
Now we have not only the muktsa-carrying dog question but the matter of the Pesachdik dog. I see a book: "Hilchot Kelev" or perhaps (forgive me) "The Lonely Dog of Faith."
SWFM, that same link listed fish food as well. I remember the olden days though, when we'd feed our goldfish matzo meal on pesach, and generally have to get new goldfish every motzai pesach!
Pearl: She eats wet food with kibble mixed in. Don't know what we'll mix in on Pesach - maybe matzo meal? :-)
Seriously, I think she'll just get a lot more table food than usual.
Miriam: I'd call the sefer "Lakelev Tashlichun Oso". :-)
"It's a Dog's Pesach"
Catchy title. Gives new meaning to the Chaza"l which states "P'nai hador ki-p'nai hakelev"
Cool. Maybe some people i know won't have to sell their dog for Pesahh now :-P .
Haha then maybe I should do that I am sick of having the fish anyway, lets see if it lasts till pesach.
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