Pesach and pets

[cellio]

During Pesach we are not permitted to eat, own, or benefit from chametz (leaven, but it's more complicated than that now). Traditional interpretations of halacha raise this as a problem for pet owners, because keeping your pets alive benefits you. So you have to find compliant forms of pet food, or send the pets elsewhere for a week, or perhaps sell the pets along with your chametz (I'm not sure if that works -- that would make you the custodian of someone else's pets for the week).

I think this interpretation of "benefit from" makes sense in the case of livestock (that you're ultimately going to profit from in some way), but I don't see it for pets. Pets aren't profit centers; they're family members -- you can argue about pecking order within the family, but that's another matter.

Still, I am mindful of the traditional problem. I can't change the food (one is on a special diet), and I'm not going to send them away or sell them, but I can still do something, without even invoking compassion or arguing about whether pikuach nefesh (serious health issues) applies to non-humans.

So, I hereby transfer ownership of the cat food in the house to the cats.

Comments

[dr4b]

I never even thought about it, hmm. When I was a kid we kept kosher and we did have pet dogs, but I don't think my parents really paid too much attention to having the dogs keep kosher!

[cellio]

The cats can eat whatever they want; the problem is who owns the food before they get around to eating it.

[estherchaya.livejournal.com]

the dogs don't have to keep kosher per se, though you can't serve a dog milk and meat together, and during pesach many people switch to a kitniyos only food rather than one with wheat for the pets.