daf bit: Shabbat 155

[cellio]

In a discussion of preparing food for animals on Shabbat the g'mara takes a tangent: R. Yonah lectured at the entrance to the Nasi's academy: What is meant by the verse "the righteous know the cause of the poor" (Prov 29:7)? The Holy One, blessed be He, knows that a dog's food is scanty (few people bother to feed them; this is not like pets today), so He makes the dog retain food in his stomach for three full days. R. Hammuna said: the care that the Almighty takes for a dog's food proves that it is a proper thing to throw raw meat to a dog. And how much? R. Mari said: measure its ear and the stick straight after, meaning give it a little and then drive it off. But that is only in the fields and not in town, because it will come to follow him. R. Papa said: none is poorer than a dog nor richer than a swine (because the swine eats anything and anyway people feed it much food). (155b)

Comments

[cellio]

Alternatively, perhaps the swine would happily chow down on your wall and that's why they use a dog as the guide?

[chaos-wrangler.livejournal.com]

I don't think pigs eat non-food items any more than dogs do (unlike goats - I once had a goat try to eat my shirt while I was wearing it).

I wonder if keeping pigs just wasn't common, given the way pigs are treated as the exemplar of non-kosher-ness. I do know that dogs were fairly common because the standard answer re what to do with food that was treif was feed it to the dogs.