I’m right now in Turkey, and it’s my last week in this beautiful country before I move on.
Cats have a very very special place in this country which is truly amazing. I wouldn’t call them “stray” in the common sense. Every supermarket, many restaurants, public buildings or what not, have bowls with water and food for them. They are almost always free to enter pretty much anywhere if they wish to do it. Apartment complexes, gated communities have dedicated space where people feed them. That particular barber shop had food and water right outside at the entrance.
I don’t fully understand all of this, but they are part of the society in a way. Probably the best way I could describe it as an outsider is they are communal, not personal, pets.
There are of course cats that “belong” to some people or families, but typically they also hang out with others as far as I can see, just have collars on them.
So taking a cat out of this feels almost like kidnapping.
And in more practical terms, because neither cats nor dogs are taken out of the streets by authorities (although they are obviously taken care of, vaccinated, dogs have chips and markings on their ears that they were examinated etc), Turkey is considered a high risk country for rabies, which means that importing an animal from here to most other countries is a bureaucratic nightmare, which takes months to do the paperwork, and a torture for the animal - it has to be taken away at least for a day to a special clinic for inspection, and in some countries it’s a mandatory quarantine for a month, or in some cases up to six months.
I have a dog with me, and the ordeal we need to go through breaks my heart already. No more animals for now.
