It has a corroborating report from Rāfiʿ ibn Khadīj, attributed to the Prophet, with similar wording. Muslim transmitted it (5/35), as did al-Tirmidhī (1275) (1), who said: “It is a good and authentic hadith. This is the view acted upon by most scholars: they disapproved of the price of a dog. It is the position of al-Shāfiʿī, Aḥmad, and Isḥāq. Some scholars, however, permitted payment for a hunting dog.”

I say: This latter group has this hadith and corroborating evidence for it. I say further: it has another chain; or, rather, al-Walīd ibn ʿUbayd Allāh ibn Abī Rabāḥ has a corroborating narrator for the exception clause. Muḥammad ibn Salamah said: from al-Muthannā, from ʿAṭāʾ, from the same source. Al-Dāraquṭnī transmitted it (3/73/275) and said: “Al-Muthannā is weak.”

I say: He is Ibn al-Ṣabbāḥ al-Yamanī. He is not severely weak. Ibn Maʿīn deemed him trustworthy in one report, though the majority declared him weak. Abū Ḥātim al-Rāzī, despite his well-known strictness in criticizing narrators, softened his judgment concerning him, saying: “His hadith is weak.” Al-Dhahabī adopted this assessment in al-Kāshif, and said in al-Mughnī: “Some regarded him as acceptable.” He seems thereby to be referring to what has preceded. Al-Ḥāfiẓ said: “Weak; he became confused in his later years, though he was devout.” He seems to mean that he was afflicted by the absentmindedness sometimes found in righteous people. Thus, someone like him may be cited as corroboration, if Allah wills.