A Dog's Life

As we walked through one of the streets of Istanbul on our way to exchange American dollars into liras, we came across a park. This park, of course, was right beside the Bosporus channel, the geographical mark between Europe and Asia. Everything in Turkey revolves around the water, because as history would indicate, the water is the source of every sustenance and social strata for most ancient cities. The park was full of colorful play grounds for children, adult-size playgrounds where many men and women exercised, and about 15 dogs. All of these dogs lay on their side, basking in the sun, which begged the question: “Where are their owners.” Upon closer inspection the dogs were mangy and wore red and white tags on their ears. According to Esma, this is the way that Istanbul deals with stray animals. The Turkish government spends money every year to vaccinate every dog, a vaccination which is indicated by the tag. Instead of impounding them or euthanizing them, they release them to live in the wonderful Mediterranean weather, to beg for food, and dodge the insane traffic in Istanbul caused by overpopulation and optional traffic lanes.

I can’t decide whether this aspect of how Turkey deals with animal control problems is comforting or if the animals are worse off than they would be in the United States. From living with my roommate Lindsey, who is a huge animal rights activist, I have learned that the United States spends a lot of money every year to house and feed stray animals in pounds, while spending even more to euthanize 75% of the animals that are left in the pound for too long. Also, With the American economic situation, families are not willing to spend money to have their animals spayed or neutered, and more families are leaving their pets behind for lack of money to care for them. This is a problem since forgetfulness of spaying or neutering the animals perpetuates the problem of overpopulation in the pounds, while an increased number of unwanted animals inspire more euthanasia to make room. All of this piled on top of the presence of puppy farms and pet stores, which breed animals for the sole purpose of selling them creates quite a problem that too many American tax monies being spent on. However, the plus side to this is that there are no animals living and dying on the streets.

Even though the Turkish government obtains money to vaccinate, spay, and neuter the stray animals, money is not being spent on housing them and feeding them until they will be euthanized. This is attractive because the animals are not being killed, but in the same sense, these animals congregate in great numbers because they are forced to fend for themselves. If one should get hurt or run over, it could die in the street and cause diseases to be spread to other stray cats and dogs, not to mention that the cats and dogs also defecate in the streets and in the parks, which may cause a health problem for other animals, especially if their waste is on an increase because of an augmentation of stray animals. Although I do not know much about whether the Turkish culture keeps pets or not, I assume that not many people own pets because of the metropolitan nature of Istanbul, so it’s not like someone is going to take one of these strays home with them.

In either country, no matter how they decide to spend money to alleviate some of the pressures of this problem, animal control is a major issue that often gets swept under the carpet. I think it is something that needs to be addressed by our government due to its potential to esthetically, emotionally, and medically upset the masses. It will be interesting to see how Corfu, Greece deals with animal control problems, a facet of the Greek culture I’m sure I will learn more about since The Silva Project is also home for a dog rescue farm.