It’s my understanding that dogs and humans have been living in some sort of symbiotic relationship for up to 12,000 years (by far the oldest “domesticated” animal, predating agriculture by thousands of years), and that there are specific adaptations both species have evolved to accommodate each other.
Can someone verify this and perhaps relate specifics? What was the nature of our relationship with dogs in prehistoric times? I assume it was all working dogs and very few “pets”? Does this sort of symbiosis count as “domestication” or is it something more? How have humans specifically evolved to live with dogs? (I am aware of a few of the differences between dogs and wolves, but none of the differences between pre- and post-dog humans.)
The Quran, like the Christian Bible accepts part of the Jewish Law. I think by the definition there, dogs are among the unclean. Jewish and Muslim dietary rules are similar.
I get questions from India about meat free diets for dogs. You can actually buy dog food containing no meat. You can formulate such a diet to meet AAFCO standards, but it isn’t easy. I have no experience with them. In most cases, I give the best answer I can, even if the question makes me roll my eyes.
I’m not sure if it is a hard and fast rule either way. My wife’s parents are Muslim, when they moved here from Indonesia they wanted to get a dog to keep as a pet (in the house). Mom asked their imam (here in America), and he said having a pet was perfectly fine as long as one is careful to take care of the pet waste properly, disposing of it promptly without touching it, and washing yourself after handling it. They’ve had two dogs in their house for some time now. Many of their Muslim friends also have pet dogs.
It may be more of a Arab cultural thing, but where Islam begins and Arabian culture ends is, let’s just say, a controversial subject among Muslims.
The only mention of dogs in the Qur’an is in a list of the desired things in life, which includes “well-trained hunting dogs.” The context of the passage is to contrast desire for worldly possessions with spiritual values. However, it still indicates a positive value accorded to dogs.
The texts that Muslims cite to prohibit dogs as pets are all from hadiths. This opens said rulings up to dispute. Khaled Abou El Fadl is a professor of Islamic law who owns several dogs as pets and says the prohibitions are based on hadiths that are too weakly supported to have the force of law, and therefore the prohibition is wrong and there’s no problem with having dogs as pets.
A lot of what people think are the rules in Islam (e.g., women not being allowed to attend mosques, or people not being allowed to have pets, or even celebrate birthdays or take out insurance) are based on such weak evidence and strained interpretations of poorly-established hadiths. But so many people are vehemently ironclad set in their ways just because they’ve always heard something is so, even though it can’t hold up to even a little questioning or analysis. They don’t question or think for themselves is the problem.
Caninovore Koreans and Chinese see no problem keeping dogs as pets and giving them all the kindness, care and love pet ownership entails. The ‘dogs’ they do eat are usually a distinct breed called, 黄狗.
There have been big scandals when crooks sold companion dogs as dog meat.
Where in Korea were you? You’d never see that in Seoul. You make it sound like this is a common practice, but I’m Korean and I’ve never been to a dog restaurant or seen a dog been butchered.
As an aside, keeping a big dog is difficult in Korea because of how crowded the cities are. Still, I’ve seen a few retrievers around our neighborhood in Seoul.
It is indeed an issue of cleanliness - touching a dog will make you “dirty”, meaning that you would need to wash before doing anything religious, and this has transmuted into a general dislike (and often fear) of dogs in Muslim communities. A Muslim friend of my mothers told her that dogs were unclean because they didn’t wash themselves (as cats, who are considered clean) did, but I doubt that is “canonical”.
Being muslim; I find this very difficult to believe. It is always amusing being told about muslim belief by non muslims:rolleyes:
Before praying you need to do ablution; it takes about 2 minutes and you need to do the same whether you touched a dog or a cat or a teddy bear for that matter.
Perhaps they meant that an already-existing valid ablution would be broken by dog-touch. Step 1: Do ablution. Step 2: On the way to pray, pet Fido. Step 3: Repeat Step 1.
Oops, my bad. Because of the formatting I didn’t realize you were just quoting Fear Itself, and he was quoting from his own post in GD. I rescind the moderator note to you. (But hey, learn to use the quote tags already - Though I realize that because Fear Itself put his remarks himself, you couldn’t quote them directly.)
Colibri
General Questions Moderator
PS. I would just reiterate, however, the general request to everyone not to introduce any religious debate into this question.
Yeah, I’ve been interested in the date man first started living with dogs for some time, and I’ve seen estimates all over the map, although 12,000 years ago is a new one to me. I’ve seen very firm assertions of 15,000 and 75,000 and 100,000, among other numbers. I guess we’re not very sure.
- Though I realize that because Fear Itself put his remarks himself, you couldn’t quote them directly.)