Boynton Beach Chronicles - Jerry Klinger (great book club books txt) 📗

Raising a Jewish Dog in Boynton Beach

A very old man had a dog, his only company for almost of 15 years. Regrettably one day, the dog died. He loved his dog like a son, for that reason he went to see his Rabbi and asked the Rabbi if he would say Kaddish (a prayer for the dead) for the dog.

The Rabbi told him: - Mr. Mendelsohn, you know that we are a very Orthodox Congregation; Kaddish is only for the humans, definitely not for animals. The Rabbi -suggested - that there was a new Reform congregation, two streets down. Go and request them to say Kaddish for your dog. You know... this new congregation is very liberal, they may say Kaddish for your dog.

The old man thanked the Rabbi, and in the farewell he added: - Sorry Rabbi, before going there, I make you an extra question, I don't know them and I don't want to offend them. Do you believe that they will accept my donation of $25,000 for their Congregation in memory of my small and dear Shlomo??

- WHAAAATTTT!!!!... screamed the Rabbi ...You never mentioned that your dog was Jewish ! !


Let it be said, no, let it be proclaimed from the highest vantage point on Mt. Sample that in the autumn days of life there are Boynton Beach Jews who do not avoid risk but face it cheek to jowl. These are the Jews who dare to venture into the unknown. These are the Jews who decided they need a life-changing event. They refuse to accept the inevitable decline of retired life, golf, boredom, mah-jongg, card playing, kvetching, early birding, arthritis, and synagogue hopping for the best free Shabbat morning kiddush. With their loins girded for battle, their faces crimson with holding deep breaths of what in the hell are we doing; off they go to Sheldon's Puppy Palace on Boynton Beach Blvd. to buy a dog. An entire industry exists in Boynton Beach around custom bred small dogs to keep the alte-cockers living.


Some no longer clearly remember what they had for dinner last night. Perhaps they are rationalizing that when they take the dog out for a walk, the dog will help them find their way home. They do remember the thrill, the excitement of that trip with the kids to pick out the family pup at the puppy store so many years ago. What they forgot was that the pup threw up on their daughter's lap from carsickness half way home.

Many of the "active adult" communities for people over 55 are gated – hopefully to keep unwanted people out more than to keep the residents in. The communities share a common feature - house after house that all look exactly alike, uniform with identical designs approved and controlled by the resident Gestapo, the community's architectural control committee. An Alzheimer service dog may be a good thing. It is more than once that a confused senior tried to use their door key in the wrong house.


A dog does change your life. A dog is a pain. A dog is a bother. It needs to be walked, played with, watched over so as not to chomp the electric cords. A dog is a pooping, chewing machine designed to destroy your best carpets and flower beds. A dog is a loving, loyal companion and that focuses on living. My mother in law is 84 years old. She has congestive heart failure and can hardly take care of herself. Yet all she talks about is life. She wants to redo her bedroom. She wants to change the color on her house trim but the architectural control committee said no. She wants a dog. She wants to think of tomorrow with adventure and with an open-ended future. She is also a realist and understands that her husband who is also 87 and can barely bend over, little less pick up after the dog has shredded the Sun-Sentinel newspaper into a gazillion little pieces, is not really a good thing for her or the dog. Their finances are very very tight and they can't afford the extra expense of a dog. She insisted instead that we get a dog that she can visit, play with and make sweaters for when it gets cold. The winter cold in Boynton Beach is the rare wintry night that the temperature drops below 50. Besides, who would let a nice Jewish dog be outside on such a night anyway?


Maybe we were feeling our blood turn into Florida blood – thinning and lacking in extra zest. We were reluctant at first but we agreed. The dog will be … well a dog and we will have to focus on the future not just retiring.

Perhaps that is why I have taken on this project of recording our own trials and tribulations when we made that insane courageous decision to get ourselves a pup. We raised our children to be good Jews, successful individuals who visit us regularly for a week in December right after winter vacation begins for the grandchildren. Now we have to figure out once again how to raise Norman, the wife named him Norman, to bring us naches as a good Jewish doggy from a good Jewish home should.


Jewish tradition is very confused about dogs. On the one hand Cain was reputed to have had a guard dog. We know of the many times that IDF dogs have given their lives so that Jewish soldiers might live. Yet on the other hand the Talmud prohibits the keeping of vicious dogs in the house or on long leashes. Amongst the Hassidic community dogs are seen as unclean, even evil. For the rest of us, there are good dogs and bad dogs.

Midrashic tradition holds that God granted a special dispensation for dogs in Jewish households.
"The Torah states that just before imposing the Tenth Plague upon the Egyptians (killing of the first born), God told Moses that while there would be loud wailing throughout Egypt, but that where the Hebrews lived, not even a dog would bark.


The Midrash states that just before the Angel of Death descended, God instructed the dogs living amongst the Hebrews to be silent. The dogs complied with loving obedience. God was so impressed that He told them that because they had obeyed with such love, He would reward them. He would instruct the Jewish people that hereafter they should give their non-kosher food to the dogs."

Norman is a mix. Some people would have called him a mutt but he is a custom designed breed recognized by the American Kennel Club as a Cock-a-Tzu,sounds like a chicken sneezing. He was born Feb. 17, 2008. His father was a Shih Tzu and his mother a Cocker Spaniel. Dogs are not racially biased to mixing. He is going to be a small dog- they say about 15-20 lbs., max.

We did not want a large dog nor a tiny tiny dog. We once saw a full-grown dog at the Pannera Sandwich shop in Boca Raton that was so tiny it fit in a coffee cup. We first thought a large hairless mouse got loose and fell into his cup. The owner said it was a Japanese something or other. Amazing how those Japanese can miniaturize things. You have to be careful that something that small does not get sucked up in a vacuum cleaner by accident.


Norman, all five pounds of him, who consisted principally of fluffy puppy fur, came to his new home. He came home to a home that instantly loved him intensely. The wife picked him out because he had a personality from the moment she held him in the puppy store, licking, nosing and squirming. He arrived home and promptly had an accident on the tiled floors. Being a male we could have said he was marking his territory. The first accident was one of many to come but to any adoring Jewish parent; their child can do no wrong.

New Jewish parents are focused on two ends of a new baby. What goes in one side and of course the other end. Food is important, only the best for baby. The wife promptly sent me out to Pet's Mart to get special formulated puppy food, chew toys and other supplies. They actually have doggie diapers but I could not go that far even for Norman. There are at least 150 varieties of dog food. There are at 400 forms of chew things, brightly colored, soft, rubbery, and in all sorts of creative shapes – dragons are my favorite. There are three varieties of specially formulated chew things for dog with halitosis, or reeking bad doggie breath. A few guys in my office could certainly benefit from a halitosis chew toy.


Finding doggie training treats, or doggie chew toys that are not made with pork or from China is a real challenge. Mexico is bad enough but what good, self respecting Jew can buy doggie chew things that are desiccated pigs ears, pig skins, bacon flavored or smeared in pig fat? It is not that Jews are prohibited from touching or using pork products – only eating them. I, personally, could not bring that into the house. Try as I did, I could not find a single bag of dried, puppy kibble with a hechshir certifying that it was kosher.

Fortunately I remembered a challenge to Kashrut that my Rabbi told me about. Is JellO Kosher? It is made from animal hoofs and bones not necessarily kosherly processed. The first thought is no. The correct answer I was given is more convoluted. Since the ground up primary component of JellO is gelatin that has been derived by making the bones and the hooves into something that the Rabbi said resembled the inedible earth then it was became o.k. It was no longer a true animal product. He said think of it as eating the dust of the earth. Without the sugary sweetened flavors JellO would be like eating the dust of the earth with water added. So, I reasoned, all the specially formulated dry puppy food had chicken or beef or some animal product mixed with ground up cereal products but no pork worked into the kibble then it must be like eating the dust of the earth. It had to be dog kosher. Secondly, we were not eating it, the dog was. It was as kosher as I could make it.


The issue of meat and milk flashed through my mind, and dog dishes. Keeping kosher means not to mix meat and milk. Clearly I was never going to give him a bowl of milk. Milk is bad for dogs; they lack an essential enzyme to digest milk products. But what about those times that a piece of cheese falls from the table and the dog eats it? Should I have a separate set of dishes for him, meat and cheese? How do I wash the dishes? Can I put his dog dish in the dishwasher with our things after I rinsed if off first. I tried taking a bucket of soapy water outside and washing his dishes separately. That effort only lasted a few times before it went by the wayside. We thought about getting him his own Yom Tov or Shabbat doggie bowls