Stray animals in Istanbul
If you spend one day walking through any neighborhood in Istanbul, you’ll be sure to encounter at least a dozen stray cats and dogs roaming the city. The stray animals are very much ingrained into the community. There’s no shortage of animal sightings along the streets, inside restaurant patios, and even climbing up onto our hotel terrace and straight onto my lap.
Most of the citizens of the city see the animals as another part of the populace. It’s a live and let live attitude, where the humans and animals in this big metropolis coexist and don’t intrude on the other. Walking along various streets in Istanbul, I actually see an abundance of bowls and trays on street corners that locals fill with water and pet food. Many locals generally want to take care of these animals by leaving food out for them.
In fact we actually ran into several vending machines throughout the city that dispense pet food every time you recycle a plastic bottle. It’s a win-win machine that promotes recycling as well as feeding our four legged friends.
You’ll notice that many of the stray dogs have an identification tag on their ear which means that they’ve already been picked up and brought to the local shelter for spaying/neutering and vaccination of rabies and other diseases. Once released, they’re free to roam wherever they would like to, although most of them have their own turf that they stick to. I’ve also seen many of them buddy up with the same group of friends that they walk around with or sleep near.
The cats and dogs that I saw were generally calm and gentle, just doing their own thing and minding their own business. They’re also pretty well behaved. At one incident I saw a street sweeper machine cleaning the ground near Hagia Sophia. One dog immediately ran towards the machine and started barking directly at the rotating bristles. The man inside the machine opened up his window and told the dog to go away, and without hesitation the dog simply walked away and laid in the corner with his eye on the street sweeper.
I’ve also seen cats and dogs lay inside restaurant patios, but didn’t see them beg for food from restaurant go-ers. One amusing sight I remember was when we were eating at an outdoor restaurant and I noticed a cat napping underneath the table. The busboy came by to clean the table for the next patrons, and when he noticed the cat, I was sure he was going to shoo the cat away. Instead, he had a broom with him and swept up the litter exactly around the cat, being very careful to sweep between his arms and legs, but never disturbing the cat. When the patrons sat down for their dinner, they were careful with where they put their feet and purse so they wouldn’t accidentally step on the cat.
Doggy sunbathing near The Obelisk of Theodosius
I know how dangerous it can be to have stray animals roaming around a big city, but it was such a pleasant sight to see these adorable animals going about their day right alongside the local people. Harrison and I actually talked about this, how stray animals in the US are seen as dirty and scary and how we’re trained as kids to stay away from them because they could hurt us.
I’m actually surprised at how clean many of the strays were in Istanbul. But it could definitely be the environment and attitude they’re raised in. In the US we expect strays to be dirty and dangerous and out to bite us. So when we see them we yell and scream to scare them, we shoo them and call animal control to trap them.
What does this do to the dogs? It does scare them. It makes them cautious around people and they’re probably more on the defensive and ready to protect themselves with their own devices, by biting us. Whereas in Turkey, dogs aren’t necessarily seen as dangerous, they’re in a live and let live environment and that’s exactly what they do.