Istanbul’s furry welcome wagon

On a rainy February night earlier this year, as I got out of the cab in front of the building that was going to be my new home for the months to come, I was welcomed, at first a bit aggressively and then with a furious wagging of the tail, by a humongous black dog. I can’t recall where he came from.

The cobblestone street was completely empty one moment and the next moment, I was being barked at and snuffed by this big dog which had popped up out of nowhere. The owner emerged – after what seemed like an eternity to me but was actually only a few seconds – from a door a few houses away. She was an old lady who started to speak to me in Turkish. She was probably asking me to pet the dog or not to be afraid. Both things seemed impossible to me at that moment. This certainly was not the welcome I had expected. She eventually grabbed the dog by the collar and pulled it away.

‘Be ready for such encounters. Cats and dogs are very common here,’ said my husband. Cats and dogs are indeed everywhere in Istanbul. It’s a city that loves its animals – pets and strays alike – and cares for them in every possible manner.

On my grocery runs, I’d pass by this shop which sold really cute baby clothes. Baby things – the clothes, the shoes, the entire paraphernalia – are so adorable that they naturally bring a smile to your face. This happened to me as well every time I walked by the huge glass window of that shop. And then I started paying attention. What are these pet houses doing next to baby clothes? Why are the litter boxes stacked outside this shop? Why is the shop selling cat food? Turns out, those weren’t baby clothes and that wasn’t a baby-stuff shop. The pretty onesies were for pets, mostly dogs! Soon, I also started noticing dogs in those clothes.

People walk their dogs every day. Five months in, I have now started recognizing some pets and their owners. For example, the really old man who sits outside a cafe with his white, furry dog that has button-like eyes and who looks at everyone who passes by with his chin (or whatever dogs have for chins) up, cuteness oozing out of his eyes. There’s the elderly couple that has a huge German shepherd. When the dog isn’t out walking, it likes to pop its head out of the window of the couple’s third-storey flat and bark in the air – which results in all the neighbourhood dogs barking in unison. Then there’s this giant of a man with a shaved head and arms covered in tattoos who has a dog completely opposite to him in stature, hardly reaching a little above the man’s ankles. They make a strange pair, for sure.

I have never seen so many different kinds of dogs in my life. And all of them are adorable in their own ways. But then these are pet dogs, so obviously they are pampered.

But what really amazes me are the street dogs. In my neighbourhood, there are at least seven street dogs roaming around at any given time. They are huge. I initially thought they were pets because they looked so healthy and well taken care of. But I learned that all of them were strays. And they are loved by the neighbourhood people. The butcher keeps bones for them, the passers-by pet them, they can sleep anywhere, enter any shop (they usually don’t though); nobody disturbs them.

I was once looking for something in my neighbourhood Migros (a major supermarket chain in Istanbul) and as I was walking through aisles, I actually stopped in my tracks because this huge dog was sleeping right in the middle of the aisle. And everyone, except me, went around unbothered, filling their carts. I’ve since seen the dog – called Migro by the staff there – lounging in and around the market many times. The streets (shops too) belong to them. And they belong to all the people who use the streets.

Dogs, however, are outnumbered by cats, which are everywhere and are the true queens (kings too) of the city. On my street only, there are at least ten cats whose permanent bedding and lodging have been arranged by the area residents. There’s a niche where multiple containers filled with cat food are arranged in a row. People have also fixed some cat beds which are used by those who may need them.

When I say they are everywhere, I mean it. It’s simply not possible that you’re eating outdoors and at least one cat is not circling around your table, standing lengthwise occasionally, its paws lodged firmly on the table, surveying the food to see if there’s anything it might eat. And these cats eat everything. People offer them French fries, vegetable rolls, doner kabab and whatnot. They are so omnipresent that it gets overwhelming at times. But you simply can’t be rude to them. Do that and be ready to face the wrath of everyone around you. The most you can do if you find them annoying is ask the server to get you another table or keep the cats away somehow.

But you can’t be violent or cruel to animals. That’s simply out of the question. Not too long ago, protests erupted when a man who was sentenced to 18 months in jail for killing a street cat was let off early for good behaviour. The outcry was so massive that the president is said to have intervened to ensure the maximum penalty to him for the crime he had committed.

But such incidents are rare. Very rare. People in general are caring towards animals – all kinds of them. The lady who lives in the apartment right in front of ours spreads bread crumbs on the windowsill for birds such as sparrows, pigeons and doves. Every afternoon, she serves some special feed for a seagull which shows up regularly at that particular time. It happens every day without fail.

When the young see the grownups being kind to animals, they learn to do the same.

I pay attention to these things because we do not have the culture of keeping pets. In fact, we as a society are as kind to animals as we should be. Many would agree with me if I say that almost all of us have seen people acting inhumanely towards animals for no reason at all. It is especially hurtful to see children being unkind towards animals (which, unfortunately, is rampant) because it shows that we are failing to instill values of sympathy and compassion in our young.

But all is not bleak. We may not have a massive pet culture in Pakistan yet, but I’m sure we’re slowly going towards it. When I call my mother, she tells me how my siblings are doing and then she informs me, ‘Billiyan bhi sab theek hain.’ For weeks, she kept updating me about the health of the kitten which fell from the balcony and hurt himself. He’s doing fine now; a bit weak but the ‘taqat ki dawayen’ he is being fed daily are working and he’s showing progress. When I video-call Ammi, she makes sure that in addition to my family members, I see the three kittens too.

Here’s to kindness, especially towards animals which eventually translates into kindness towards one another.

The writer worked for these pages in another lifetime.