Is washing what a dog has touched with soap and water sufficient to remove ritual impurity, and is it obligatory to abandon work that necessitates dealing with dogs and touching their tools and clothes?

There is no harm in training dogs if the purpose is legitimate, such as for police work, provided one takes precautions regarding their impurity and washes whatever saliva or urine gets on clothes or the body, and washes vessels they lick from seven times, the first of which is with earth.

As for colleagues who may be affected by dog saliva, their hands and clothes are originally pure unless there is certainty of impurity. If they wash off the impurity with water and soap without the seven-time washing, that removes it, as many jurists believe that soap and similar substances can substitute for earth.

The questioner is advised to fear Allah as much as possible, knowing that some jurists (such as the Malikis and the Zahiris) consider the entire dog, including its saliva, to be pure, citing Allah’s saying: ﴿So eat of what they catch for you﴾, and that dogs used to enter and exit the Prophet's Mosque without their places being sprinkled with water.