Raising puppies before sending them to be trained to guide the blind

27-1-2015 | IslamWeb

Question:

Please advise if it is halal for me to foster puppies for a year which then go on to training facilities to become assistance dogs for the disabled community e.g. Guide dogs for the blind. Jazakallaahukhairun

---

Answer:

All perfect praise be to Allaah, The Lord of the Worlds. I testify that there is none worthy of worship except Allaah, and that Muhammad, sallallaahu ‘alayhi wa sallam, is His slave and Messenger.

In principle, it is prohibited for the Muslim to keep a dog. Abu Hurayrah narrated that the Prophet, sallallaahu ‘alayhi wa sallam, said: "Whoever keeps a dog, except a dog for hunting, herding livestock or farming, one Qiraat of reward will be deducted from his reward each day." [Al-Bukhari, Muslim and others]

Hence, it is impermissible for a Muslim to keep a dog except for the cases permitted by Sharee'ah. Keeping puppies and raising them to give them to others in need of them is not among the permissible purposes. The blind person who needs a dog to guide him is the one in need, not you.

The religious opinion we adopt in Islamweb is that it is permissible for the blind person to have a guide dog if he cannot find any other alternative, by analogy with the permissible purposes specified in the Hadeeth: hunting or guarding livestock for instance. Hence, whenever there is a valid need to have a dog, then the same religious ruling applies. The blind person's need to have a guide dog is stronger than people's need to have a hunting dog.

Shaykh Ibn ‘Uthaymeen said, underlining the permissibility of keeping a guard dog: "If it is permissible to keep a dog for hunting, while hunting is not vital to the person's life because he can live without hunting, then it is more appropriate that one would be allowed to keep a dog for necessary matters."

For more benefit, please refer to Fatwa 10546.

Allaah Knows best.