What about the Turkish people. How do they think of stray and neglected animals?

Most people aren’t even aware of the fact that animals have feelings, like pain and joy. A lot of Turkish people consider them dirt. They are regarded as lower species and it seems to be a law of nature in Turkish society that one always mistreats the ones that are lower. People are afraid of the dogs roaming around and there are a lot of misconceptions regarding animal rights and the Islam. This is why animal welfare workers are often considered kind of an enemy rather that the more or less heroic image they have in western society.

Are their street cats in Turkey and what is the condition like for them?

There are indeed a lot of street cats as well, but a cat is more self-supporting and has the ability to hide himself. One of my friends in Istanbul feeds about 60 stray cats every day. One evening I joined her. When we arrived at the feeding spots I could really not see one cat, but after her special whistle about 30 cats came running towards us to get their daily meal. So cats aren’t very much threatened.

FOR ALL ANIMAL LOVERS LIKE ME, WHO LOVE CATS AND DOGS

http://www.abolitionist-online.com/07r_turkey.shtml

There are too many street dogs where I live.  The Belediye take them off the streets periodically to inject them against rabies and spay the females but they put them straight back on the street.  In the summer they must be a real nuisance to the tourists as they roam on the beaches.  In the winter they are much hungrier as nearly all the restaurants are closed and they can´t scavenge the bins for food and they tend to run in ´packs´ which can be quite scary although I don´t find the dogs scary individually.  There are quite a lot of people here who feed the dogs - mainly Brits/Dutch - and on Saturday there was actually a sale of books/cakes etc. to raise money to buy food for them.

Recently there was a spate of poisoning of street dogs - thankfully this has stopped, I don´t think it was ever found out who was doing it.  This is certainly NOT the way to deal with the problem.  Personally I think the dogs should be taken off the street and if a home can´t be found for them then they should be humanely put down.  But apparently this is not an acceptable option.  I wouldn´t say that Turkish people don´t like dogs, I think a lot of them are scared of them and in general they definitely don´t treat them as ´one of the family´ as certainly most British people do (can´t vouch for the rest of the World!).

I have heard that part of the problem with so many street dogs is that Turkish people from Istanbul/Ankara who spend their summers here will often buy a dog but then turn it out on the street when they leave - I don´t know if this is true.

Cats!  - hundreds of them!  Nearly everyone I know feeds 3 or 4 street cats - who then become sort of ´half street cats".  The other streets cats seem to live in the litter bins .  There is group of animal welfare people who come into town regularly and try to catch them to inject and spay them.  If you feed a street cat you start to feel responsible for it - my responsibility for one a few months ago ended up with me having a course of anti-rabies injections!!  Good job I´m protected because I am going to have to take one of the others to the vet later today - hopefully this one won´t turn so vicious

Excuse me! I strongly disagree this generalization being a creature lover as well..

We Turks don´t see the lower creatures to be treated bad! It is an unjust judgement.

or I am and the ones i know are not Turks..

 I agree actually - I should have said that in my post.  Dogs/cats are not treated badly, I just think that they are not treated (generally) as ´one of the family´ !

It is something I notice when I go to Turkey and this subejct has been raised before.

One way for the resorts boys to attract girls is to have a pretty little puppy...... but we also noticed that the dogs are often tagged and they tend to find a sympathetic tourist (me) who will stroke and play with them.  And for every one of me, there are plenty more.

As for cats, we saw many cats in the Bitez area, so starving, it is a wonder they could walk.  One little cat came to our table every morning for breakfast and Mrs softy fed it every day.  I even went home worrying about that little cat. 

But in Gümüslük, I saw a cat that nearly made me sick!  Half it´s bottom jaw and one eye was missing.  It was looking at me and I nearly retched!!!  There were about three cats under our table at lunch and my husband decided to drop some fish skin on the floor and I nearly didn´t have any legs left.

But certainly any country I have been too, apart from America, the cats and dogs are not treated like pets as we know it in the UK, but left to roam wild and fend for themselves (in general, not all are like that).

Yes - the Bitez area has an awful lot of beach dogs but I have noticed that the restaurant owners do their best for them - especially in low season. I have a Turkish friend who often bottle feeds kittens when the mother has not survived. This is a big committment - but once the kitten is of an age it is considered a "grown up"!!

I think the English are far more emotional about animals - I know I feed our estate cats when I am there and then assume that other people take over when I am not there. So far this is working but the guilty conscience gets worse every time I leave "my" cat!!

When I first came in Istanbul, I was shocked to see so many dogs and cats on the streets.  At first I thought they could be dangerous, carrying diseases and such so even though I love dogs(I´m not really a cat person), I tried to avoid physical contact with them until I learned that the ones with pierced ears are registered and vaccinated by the government.  Then I started feeding them every day with leftovers and sometimes regular dog food.

I don´t know about any other parts of Istanbul, but in Atasehir, the stray dogs are really friendly.  They always used to come along when I was taking a walk in the dark or during my morning walks.  They´re extremely needy though, they always ask for attention and love rather than food or shelter=).

I feel really strongly about this. Every resort I have stayed in has it´s quota of half starved creatures roaming the streets in search of food. We too have fed cats on each of our holidays.  When I came home last year I found the web site of the local council, Belidiye, and there was a link allowing people to send comments. So I commented both on the stray animals, and also on the long queues for passport controls at Dalaman. I copied the e-mails to the Tourism ministry, and to the Turkish Embasssy in London. I think that people have to make their views known to the authorities who regard Tourism money highly.

Incidentally, Greece has much the same problem.

so what is your solution to this problem? should Turkey get rid of all the stray animals by killing  them just like what most of the western countries did long ago. or do you think the government can feed them forever?

 In some of the more affluent areas in California, USA people have dogs to guard their property.

One day I was visiting such an area and I wanted to smoke a cigarette. I decided to take a walk, when all of a sudden about 7 large dogs decided to "walk" with me. It was rather frightening as the leader of the pack was a wolf dog (half wolf half German Shepard) I was rather upset and told them," look guys, I´m just trying to have a smoke, OK?"

It turned out OK, but it was really an "interesting" experience. The wolf dog decided I was part of the pack.

I haven´t seen many dogs in Turkey and those I saw were quite small but I remember packs of dogs in the streets of Romanian cities. Maybe it´s all those creepy stories about Vlad Dracula but seeing 7-8 huge dogs running through empty streets at night time gave me shivers

In the Erzincan province town where I lived, there were a number of stray dogs, mostly mongrels with a good bit of Kangal in them. I never saw any of them being threatening or aggressive; in fact they were rather shy. Our cook fed leftovers to them almost every night, at first to a bitch and her puppies, later to a young dog which we adopted. He developed a territorial attitude toward our neighborhood and would run off other strays, although he got along with other neighborhood dogs which had owners. The local people had a generally benevolent attitude toward the stray dogs and many fed them scraps and leftovers, although few people befriended or played with individual animals.

Once or twice a year, in the summer generally, the local authorities would carry out a poisoning campaign and so wipe out most of the strays. They didn´t poison dogs with a collar so we got one for our friend Brusk. We also took him to the town vet for a checkup and distemper shots. The vet issued us a formal little identification booklet for him, complete with a picture. We used a different name for this document though, as Brusk is a Kurdish name and everyone concerned thought it best not to use it in an official document. Brusk was one of the nicest dogs I have ever known.

The concept of a spay/neuter campaign never occurred to anyone of course. Such campaigns have been very effective in keeping the stray population down in the U.S. town where I live but I don´t think they´ll be adopted in Turkey any time soon.

Further to the cat situation - on Monday I looked out of my kitchen window and saw several cats gathered round something that looked like a raw chicken on the ground. I went down to have a look and it was a chicken that smelt really bad.  I shooed the cats away and stuck the chicken in a bag and threw it in the bin in the road outside.  The cat I was taking to the vets wasn´t eating because he couldn´t (hence the vet trip).  He is now getting better and living on our porch at the moment.  However......all the other cats - including the two others we have been feeding - have disappeared and we have a horrible feeling that the chicken was poisoned and left out for them deliberately .  This means it must have been done by one of our Turkish neighbours as we are the only Brits living on the site.  We may be wrong - I hope we are - but it seems very strange that half a dozen cats would just disappear all at once.

 How sad for the cats. It could just be that the chicken was not really good. You know, it could most probably have been infected with salmonella or some other contagon chickens are known to carry.

Thank you for careing for the cats. My cousin does cat rescue and now is trying to find homes for about 60 cats.

My reply to Tamidakika is that I recognise that this is a problem. Does Turkey recognise it as one ?  My solution would be to institute a program of neutering street animals, and educating people who allow animals to roam free. I also believe that visitors should raise the issue with politicians both local and national in Turkey.  Leaving kittens and young dogs to starve in the streets is not good business for any tourist area.

 hmmm This happens in Bitez also - hence my friend bottle feeding the surviving kittens. I can "sort of" understand why a restaurant owner would do this but as Mike says there must be a better solution.

 I completely agree.  Sitting eating lunch with stray cats at your feet, about to fight is not good for business.  We don´t have that many strays wandering around in England, for a start there are dog wardens who collect up any dog that looks even remotely stray.  We have our pets chipped with identification tags and there are organisations in Britian that look after unwanted animals. 

I know there are people in Turkey who will look after animals, but they are very much left to fend for themslves, and end up being a nuisance - it is about time the government recognised it.

Animal Shelters

You can offer assistance to the stray cats and dogs wandering on the streets by getting in touch with the animal shelters in various districts of the town. After the necessary shots, rehabilitation and neutering operations, they try to find families to look after those animals.

Those wishing to keep a cat or a dog can find purebred, half-bred or stray dogs and cats at these shelters.

If you don´t wish to keep them at home you can take responsibility for one as a "protective family". This means commiting to the adopted animals´ expenses in the shelter and visiting them from time to time and to play.

Besides the shelters there are several groups working for the benefit of stray animals in Istanbul and following are some of them. You can be sure they will be grateful for any kind of assistance.

Çevre ve Sokak Hayvanlarý Derneði (Association for Stray Animals)
Their goal is to collect stray cats and dogs, neuter them, complete the necessary shots-especially rabies- and find new homes for them. Moreover, milk, macaroni, bread, pet food, vitamins and antibiotics are always welcome. They also accept monetary assistance and can give a receipt.

Evsiz Hayvanlarý ve Doðayý Koruma Derneði (Association for Stray Animals and Protecting the Nature)
This shelter was founded in Sarýyer by the Municipality of Metropolitan Istanbul and then handed over to animal lovers. They neuter and complete the necessary shots and try to find new homes for them. The "protective family" concept is also available and all kinds of assistance are welcome.

SHDK - Sahipsiz Hayvanlar Koruma Derneði (Society for the protection of Stray Animals )
This multi-purpose facility is located at Kemerburgaz Göktürk Köyü. They neuter and complete the shots of the stray animals and, after fasten ear-tags, the animals are sent back to streets. These animals are checked periodically. The facility also find homes for them.
Göktürk Köyü, Kemerburgaz
Tel: (212) 322 18 19

Yedikule Hayvan Barýnaðý (Yedikule Animal Shelter)
There are 1700 dogs here, and you can visit the shelter everyday from 10:30 to 15:30

Quoting kurtlovesgrunge

Animal Shelters

You can offer assistance to the stray cats and dogs wandering on the streets by getting in touch with the animal shelters in various districts of the town. After the necessary shots, rehabilitation and neutering operations, they try to find families to look after those animals.

Those wishing to keep a cat or a dog can find purebred, half-bred or stray dogs and cats at these shelters.

If you don´t wish to keep them at home you can take responsibility for one as a "protective family". This means commiting to the adopted animals´ expenses in the shelter and visiting them from time to time and to play.

Besides the shelters there are several groups working for the benefit of stray animals in Istanbul and following are some of them. You can be sure they will be grateful for any kind of assistance.

Çevre ve Sokak Hayvanlarý Derneði (Association for Stray Animals)
Their goal is to collect stray cats and dogs, neuter them, complete the necessary shots-especially rabies- and find new homes for them. Moreover, milk, macaroni, bread, pet food, vitamins and antibiotics are always welcome. They also accept monetary assistance and can give a receipt.

Evsiz Hayvanlarý ve Doðayý Koruma Derneði (Association for Stray Animals and Protecting the Nature)
This shelter was founded in Sarýyer by the Municipality of Metropolitan Istanbul and then handed over to animal lovers. They neuter and complete the necessary shots and try to find new homes for them. The "protective family" concept is also available and all kinds of assistance are welcome.

SHDK - Sahipsiz Hayvanlar Koruma Derneði (Society for the protection of Stray Animals )
This multi-purpose facility is located at Kemerburgaz Göktürk Köyü. They neuter and complete the shots of the stray animals and, after fasten ear-tags, the animals are sent back to streets. These animals are checked periodically. The facility also find homes for them.
Göktürk Köyü, Kemerburgaz
Tel: (212) 322 18 19

Yedikule Hayvan Barýnaðý (Yedikule Animal Shelter)
There are 1700 dogs here, and you can visit the shelter everyday from 10:30 to 15:30

 Thanks for posting this!  Sounds similar to what happens in France, where people (volunteers) can visit the shelters and offer to take the dogs for a walk.

I have seen the dogs with ear tags in Oludeniz, and they were mostly looked after by the resort workers.

In most supermarkets in England there is a bin. People buy animal food with their shopping  and then place it in the bin.This is then collected by an animal charity who take in stray animal and rehouse them.

I remember visiting Fatih Cami, Istanbul, one evening.  Meat had been put out for some 40 or 50 cats and they were having a great picnic. 

I have actually taken in a street dog, we sort of found each other wandering around the same area everyday ,she was about three months when I took her in. It was difficult at first because she didnt like the lead and was very reluctant to come into my home, on many occasions I had to actually pick her up and carry her in. I spent money and had all her jabs done and recently  has had the op so she cant get pregnant. She still has moments when she dosent like to come in and I have to bribe her , and she is still a nervous dog ,dosent like hoover and sudden noise, but she is a very friendly little thing and loves people, although here first reaction is to bark, but wagging her tail. I have another little puppy that I would love to take in off the street but I have to stop myself from taking him home with me. It seems to me that SOME turkish put the dogs on the street and us soft english  take them from the street and give them a warm  friendly home.

 Wonderful story Deli - I am glad there are people like you out there ("soft English" or not)

I have a horrible feeling that if I was living in Turkey I would end up taking in stray cats!  Then...after I am old and grey and my dudu has drained me of all my money and left me, I would live alone with 2000 cats and become known as the  "Mad Cat Woman of Istanbul"

Now waiting a sarcastic response from Tami!

 I can see it now......

My daughter acquired a year old cat three weeks ago.  He needed a new home because his owner could no longer keep him.  He is used to children, which is just as well because my two year old grand daughter hugs him every chance she can.  He is a wonderful cat, so friendly.

They kept him in the house for two weeks then let him out.  He ran off and never returned.  Imogen was very upset and looked for him all the time.  Today, after a week, he has returned!!!  He´s a little scrawny looking and muddy but he came back and Imogen is so happy about it .

It seems an extreme version of it "finding it´s bearings".  When I have adopted cats before, I also let them out after two weeks and similar things happened!!!  The last time, I tried to keep a watch on it and saw the cat first walk around the entire boundary of the garden, then it travelled around the house in about a mile circle!!!  Finally, somehow, he found his way back after a few hours! Afterwards, it never once left the garden again! My guess is that your daughter´s somehow got trapped in a garage or shed or something

cancelled

 Maybe because it - just like this one - is too large and breaks the site structure?

 i too think so!

 it is something very normal. almost in all of eastern countries there are lots of street dogs. of course, they are removed in big cities, but in smaller ones they a part of a city scene.

if people can hardly make for food, what do you expect for animals? they are just left to themselves.

i worry more about street children than street dogs.

 +1

but tami? he just ignores it. tami has just barked back in order to attack you. in fact he doesnt fart about dogs.