In fact, my dog is Jewish. Here’s how I know.
I recently moved with my husband to an outer suburb of New York City, known for its Jewish, but not young, population.
I haven’t really met any friends. Neither has my dog. The second is a much bigger problem. My dog can’t spend his days chatting with friends on IM or browsing Facebook. He needs real socialization time with other dogs–running around, fetching, sniffing butts–whatever works for him.
Being that there are so few young people in our area, most people own homes, as opposed to renting apartments. This means that other potential doggie friends are hidden behind their white picket fences (literally) instead of at the dog parks.
So I turned to Meetup.com, which is totally out of my character. I found a group of dog owners in my area and found another woman’s profile saying she was relatively new to the area and also looking for doggie playdates. I emailed, though it was a bit strange. I had never approached someone online like this.
We are both commuters, weekends worked best for us. I suggested Sunday mornings. She wrote back that she has “religious services.” Would Saturday morning work? Not really, I wrote back. We still haven’t made it work.
To be honest, I don’t have too many non-Jews friends. I work in the Jewish community, as does my husband. We live in the New York area. Most of our friends from growing up were from our Jewish youth group.
I know I can socialize with non-Jews. But truth be told, my lifestyle and schedule don’t make it that easy. And like most of my friends, we feel more comfortable being in a group of Jews. And while my dog can definitely play with dogs of all creeds and breeds (his last “girlfriend” was Yorkie owned by a Persian family), his schedule is dictated by mine.
Alas, playtime is a shared experience for just the two of us curly-haired Jews.
(Unless of course any of our blog readers are in Rockland County and want to make friends with adorable Peyton the Cockapoo.) 
