A recent blog entry counseled single women against keeping cats, unless a rodent problem was in evidence. Of course, it did not occur to me that any woman would consider sleeping with a cat, until I received the following fairly horrifying response from a dear friend who I shall not name here:
"What if she's a divorced or widowed woman? What if the dog sleeps on the bed and the cat sleeps on a chair in the kitchen? Is that OK with you, Luke? (Or should I say, "Link?")"
The thought of a woman sleeping with a dog is a horror that I had not considered in drafting my responsa. A dog is an unclean animal, both to Judaism and to Islam (our cousin faith). Consider that no dog has ever mastered the art of wiping itself clean with toilet paper after canine defecation. This means that the dog that sleeps in bed with you brings with it exposed fecal particles that must inevitably soil the bed. And the uncleanliness does not end there. We all know that dogs like to slobber. Revulsion prevents me from delving deeper into this, but it should suffice to say that nothing good can come from a lonely woman sleeping with a dog. So great is this horror that if she must choose between sleeping with a cat and sleeping with a dog, a single woman may sleep with the cat, but only if the alternative is that she will be sleeping with dogs.
Better that she sleep with a good man and raise his children.
