IF you have travelled to Istanbul then you know residents are nuts about their cats and dogs. I learned it on my first day in 2018 when I went to visit the Blue Mosque with my hosts and saw dogs and cats relaxing on the grounds outside. One dog wandered in and was so gently escorted out. Imagine what we would have done to a dog had it happened here.

I spent the next five days in utter marvel at how residents cared for their strays. They fed them, cared for them and took them to vets — individually, or collectively as a neighbourhood. It is a subject that has fascinated visitors who photograph themselves with the more famed cats at Hagia Sophia. There are documentaries about them. My favorite are videos on YouTube of cats playing inside the mosques.

Turkiye has a fascinating relationship with dogs which dates back to the Ottomans where they were seen as “public property” according to one European diplomat, quoted in a story in the Guardian. But then a cruel culling took place under a reformist government in 1908, details of which are too painful to describe. Urban legend says that Turkish people treat dogs out of guilt for that culling, convinced they will be protected from the evil eye.

President Tayyip Erdogan passed a law in 2004 giving dogs the right........

© Dawn