Why is a dog different from any other tamei animal? If you own a farm, do you have horses and/or donkeys???? Please. If your response to that is, “Well they don’t live in the house,” can you have a parakeet? Did people not keep cats in their home to get rid of mice?
Yes there are specific halachos about dogs (muktzeh to touch on Shabbos, assur to “walk” them unless they are pulling you and not vice versa, etc.). I personally did not grow up with a dog in the home. I was scared to death of them, and did not get over my fear until my teen years. When I was 20 years old, my beloved maternal grandmother who had lived for the last 15 years with us died. During her year-long illness, she had occasionally had hallucinations, when her medication built up too strongly in her blood and she needed a blood transfusion. Her hallucinations were always the same. She saw a small black and white dog lying under her sewing machine in her bedroom. When she died, on what would have been both her Jewish birthday AND was her shloshim, a black and white Springer Spaniel mix came into our backyard, sat himself down by our back door and made himself a place to sleep. He would not leave, but stayed in place. Finally we had rachmanus and left him some food. He ate and left. THEN, he came back and again stayed at the door. This went on for two days, with us (foolishly, as some people said)left food for him. Each time, he ate, left, then returned and sat back down, like he was guarding the door. The third day, it was Shabbos, and storming with thunder and lightning. We heard a howling, and we couldn’t bear that he sounded so scared, so we let him in out of the rainstorm. When the storm stopped, we immediately opened the door for him to go out. He started to go out halfway, then looked to his right and then to his left, stopped, and then slow-w-w-w-wly backed into the house. That was it, this dog was ours. Whatever any of you might be thinking right now, and even if you are laughing your heads off, we, the totally non-dog family, became a dog-loving family. We could not help but feel like Bubby had sent us this dog, to give us someone to care for, now taht she was gone. And you know what – Max (as we named him) was incredibly and fiercely protective of us, very loyal and loving, and especially devoted to my mom. Every night he waited for my parents to come home from work, standing guard at the door five minutes before they arrived home. How he knew the exact time,(it varied every day), we will never know, unless his hearing being so acute,he recognized the sound of their car’s motor from blocks away.
I personally would not get another dog, but sometimes it is a very good thing to have one. if you don’t agree,then by all emans, do NOT get a dog.