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From a distance, Turkey’s stray dogs may look like stuffed animals: large, harmless, furry creatures with a penchant for sunbathing.
I gave them little thought when my wife and I embarked on an odyssey to bring our 12-year-old greyhound mongrel, Ricardo, from London to Ankara following my appointment last year as correspondent in Turkey.
The trip across Europe was made on sleeper trains and in cars. Ricardo had a great time eating schnitzel in Vienna and pizza in Rome. A hotel in Patras even set up a dog bed filled with treats.
When we finally crossed the Turkish border on a small ferry sailing across the sparkling Aegean Sea from the Greek island of Kos to Bodrum in southern Turkey, we were in high spirits.
But spending less than 24 hours in the country was enough to dispel my fantastical image of Turkish stray dogs as gentle giants.
Walking through a small village outside Bodrum to try Midye dolmaa delicious plate of mussels stuffed with rice, three or four huge dogs appeared on the sidewalk and attacked around us barking and growling.
My wife Victoria and I attributed it to a strange incident in a remote location, but we were wrong: stray dogs stalked our journey through the heart of Anatolia, Turkey. Every refuelling stop meant being chased by packs of dogs, some of which escorted our car as we left the esplanade.
We didn’t get much respite when we finally arrived in Ankara, Turkey’s capital. Our hotel was next to a park where a particularly aggressive pack lived. It was comforting to see the residents feeding them every day. But it was less comforting when they chased us while we took Ricardo for his daily walks.
The stray dog crisis, which now numbers four million divides Turkish societyHeartbreaking stories appear in local newspapers showing children being hit by cars while fleeing stray dogs, and public health officials worry about the spread of disease. But others say dogs have been a beloved part of life here for centuries. It’s common to see people leaving dog food, chicken bones and even pasta for strays, something Ricardo regularly tries to get in our neighborhood.
For the past two decades, Turkey has implemented a policy of capturing stray dogs, sterilizing them and returning them to the place where they were found. However, the uneven implementation of this policy has led to a rapid increase in the dog population.
President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan called this spring for radical changes to Turkey’s policy on stray dogs, saying the crisis was preventing the country he has led since the turn of the millennium from developing further. His Justice and Development Party (AKP) fueled a furious debate when it launched a plan to round up stray dogs in shelters and kill any that were not adopted within 30 days.
Turkish state television reinforced the president’s stance by continuously showing videos of huge stray dogs attacking people across the country. But animal rights activists responded with protests, calling the proposed law a “massacre.”
The AKP has finally backed down on its plan to kill dogs that are not adopted within 30 days. Parliament, which is controlled by the AKP and its coalition partners, passed a law late last month that will force municipalities to collect stray dogs, paving the way for them to kill dogs that are aggressive, sick or pose a risk to public health.
Many are concerned that the new rules will give local governments and animal haters the green light to initiate culling. “There is no doubt that we will witness slaughter in a very short time,” said Kerem Turunç, an Istanbul-based lawyer.
Polls show there is consensus in Turkey on the need to remove stray dogs from the streets, but few want mass killings. A Turkish friend said that as a child, she was pained to see garbage collectors picking up dead dogs that had been poisoned as part of previous population control measures. Many worry that even if Turkey tries to kill unwanted animals humanely, the scale of such an operation could lead to savage practices.
Turkey’s main opposition party, which controls the country’s largest cities, has vowed to fight the new rules in court and said it will not implement them.
For now, like many Turkish residents, I am anxiously hoping that the worst fears of animal lovers do not come true, while continuing with my strategy of keeping Ricardo away from any clan of stray dogs.