Keeping dogs to guard the house
Question Myself, my mother and sister are living alone in a house. sometimes I’ve got to leave town due to work and my mother and sister stay alone. there is no one living below and the house is big. Can we rear any pets for some protection against intruders or thiefs? If we can, what…
Question
Praise be to Allah.
It is permissible to keep a dog as a guard
dog, so long as you avoid letting it inside the house and are careful to avoid letting it make vessels and clothes naajis (impure), because the
Prophet (peace and blessings of Allaah be upon him) said: “Whoever keeps a dog, his reward for good deeds will decrease by one qeeraat every
day, except dogs used for farming or herding livestock.” Narrated by al-Bukhaari, 2322.
The version narrated by Muslim (1574) says:
“Whoever keeps a dog, except a dog for hunting or herding livestock, his reward will be decreased by two qeeraats every day.”
Dogs used for farming or herding livestock
are those that are used to guard them.
This hadeeth indicates that it is permissible
to keep a dog to guard one’s property.
Al-‘Iraaqi said in Tarh al-Tathreeb,
6/28: Our companions and others said: it is permissible to keep a dog for these three purposes, namely hunting and protecting one’s livestock and
farmland. They differed concerning keeping a dog for the fourth purpose, which is to guard houses or roads etc. Some of our companions said that
it is not permissible because of this hadeeth and others, which clearly state that it is haraam except for one of these three things. But most of
them said, which is the more correct view, that it is permissible by way of analogy, based on the reason that may be understood from this hadeeth,
which is necessity.”
With regard to preventing the dog from
entering the house, that is because of the words of the Prophet (peace and blessings of Allaah be upon him): “The angels do not enter a house
in which there is a dog or an image.”
Narrated by al-Bukhaari, 3322; Muslim, 2106.
