שמות כב ל
וְאַנְשֵׁי קֹדֶשׁ תִּהְיוּן לִי וּבָשָׂר בַּשָּׂדֶה טְרֵפָה לֹא תֹאכֵלוּ לַכֶּלֶב תַּשְׁלִכוּן אֹתוֹ
Shemot 22:30
And you shall be for me a holy people. Do not eat terefa meat; send it before the dog instead.There once was a shochet who worked in a small village slaughterhouse processing chickens for the townsfolk. When he was unsure if a chicken was taref or not, he would approach the dayan of the village and seek an answer.
The owner of the slaughterhouse learned of this practice and disapproved.
"Why do you waste so much time traveling out to the local dayan?" He asked him one day. "I have a more efficient way to determine whether or not the chicken of question is kosher. Offer it to the dog! If the dog accepts, it must be terefa, for it is written in the Torah 'Do not eat terefa meat; send it before the dog instead.' If the dog rejects it, the chicken must be kasher!"
"Okay," said the naive shochet, "I'll give it a try."
The next time a kashrut question arose, he took the chicken and placed it before the guard dog. The dog was well trained to not accept food from strangers and did not attempt to eat it.
"Must be kosher!" the shochet said.
The next day, another questionable chicken was placed before the dog. Again, the dog held itself back. The chicken was ruled to be kosher.
On the third day, the dog's instinct finally kicked in and he willingly accepted the chicken. The chicken was ruled to be taref. Once he saw that no harm came to him, he no longer refrained and all the chickens that were placed before him were ruled to be not kasher.
After two weeks of taref rulings on his chickens, the shochet decided to go back to the dayan with his questions.
"If you don't mind me asking," the dayan told him, "Where have you been these past two weeks? It was the longest stretch I have ever seen you go without coming to me with a kashrut question!"
"Well," said the shochet hesitantly, "The truth is that I tried a new posek. But he turned out to be way too machmir."
