Gul and Cara.. Presidents of Hearts

Gul was not rehomed by us but by SHKD, an organization we love and respect most of the time , but I had the pleasure to meet him personally a couple of years ago whilst he was at the shelter waiting for a family in Germany to adopt him. He became best friends with Maria, the irish setter we saved from Ayzer Buyuker and his perverted family.

Today we received a letter from Gul…

That’s me, Gul,

I will be 12 years old in June.

I owe my life to people who took care of me in a Turkish Dog Shelter in Istanbul. And to Turkish politicians who did not prevent them from taking care of me.
I now give back the love I was given to children. German children. Turkish children. Children from Afghanistan. Italian children and children from Greek. Any children. Anyone.
I am a happy dog. Because I CAN love. Because I am still alive.

Gul is real sunshine and touches the heart of everybody; he really is a very very special dog. I changed his name to “Panino” which is Italian and means “little bread”. Bread in italian does not only mean bread but “a piece of bread” is a person that is very good and friendly and has nothing bad.
Gul IS nothing but friendly. And really clever, especially if you regard his age. He came here on 23-11-06 and did not know anything. I had to lift him up to sit him in the car and I had to carry him up any stairs. He did not know any leash or collor and was not used to walk straight, but only here and there and around. He was afraid of glass doors (e.g. shops), never lifted his leg for making “pee” and has not been housetrained at all. He obviously never knew things like cheese, yoghurt or other fine things that dogs usually love to eat.
Within 6 months he learned everything:

He goes shopping with me

Loves travelling with friends on the car

Here.. taking a stroll in the fields..

Love the metro!!

and to watch fishes at the zoo…

Gul is scared of those funny small horses..

Going around town using public transportation is cool..

Gul and Cara hate the fireworks in New Year!!

Here… in his little secret corner at the garden…

Loves to buy lingerie…

Here in Munich, Gul became the president of hearts. He is a very special dog that has love for everybody in his heart, no matter if children or adults, no matter if two legs or four.
While Turkish politicians wanted this old guy to be put outside in the streets or in the woods, hoping that he might starve to death, be shot or die otherwise.

Those, who take lives instead of respecting and saving it – will never be president of hearts. They will not even be loved – like a dog.

We all follow our hearts: if your heart is full of love (like the heart of Gul), you will give love. If your heart is full of hate and cruelty, you will give that. I see what you do and I know how your heart is.

With lots of love
Cara, former Kara, soul sister of Gul and another happily escaped dog from Istanbul, living in Munich since 1998

So this is it… Gul… he didnt end up in a chinese restaurant.. or an evil laboratory or any of the usual bullshit you normally hear.. he ended up spending the last years of life enjoying the happiness that was denied to him in Turkey.

A happy dog… from the streets of Istanbul to the streets of Munich.

Anybody has a problem? Surely Gul doesnt!!!

Mr. Bones

We rescued Pamir from the inept hands of the İstanbul Municipality Veterinarians.

The three month old puppy was showing strong signs of Rachitism that stopped him from being able to walk or stand properly. Watching him crawl in a cage with a hundred of other dogs scrapping for food broke our hearts and we got him out.

The inept Municipal vets had placed a primitive bandage on his legs and drop him with the lot waiting for his turn to be dropped in one of İstanbul forests.

We named him Pamir in honor of a good friend although Mr. Bones soon became his nickname.

Mr. Bones followed a treatment that enabled him to recover the full use of his legs..

To watch him walk upright for the first time in his life was a truly magical moment.

Today Mr. Bones is a totally normal dog… actually not.. the truth is that he is a hyperactive bag of skin and bones and the funkiest black and silver white hair. He eats about twice the amount of his brothers and sisters (he lives in a family with other 5 dogs).

Mr. Bones likes to start his day early… 4 o clock and spends his entire day doing productive stuff like running, jumping and biting his friends, eating constantly and in general running everyone mad.

Alex… living like a King in Germany!!!

The rumours spread by those ridiculous Turkish ultra-nationalists maskerading as animal protectors and mad-as-a-hat crazed animal lovers like Adanas Barbie Nesrin Citirik (DOHAYKO) and Gamze Neer (HAYKOD Ankara) go as follows:

Evil animal organizations, namely the Beykoz Volunteers, SHKD and EHDKD are going around the streets of Turkey, catching stray animals and then we send them to Chinese restaurants, fur factories and evil german laboratories where the dog dies being experimented some evil chemical weapon that is being prepared to erase the entire turkish nation from the world….

This is what the rumours say…

Believe it or not there are many.. many .. many people that give credit to this bullshit. It is unbelieveble.. sometimes you are at a dinner and someone tells you.. psss.. did you hear what those evil people are doing to our turkish dogs? there are some evil foreigners that bla, bla, bla, .. then of course the best part is the faces of surprise when you tell them that you have been sending dogs to beautiful homes in Germany for years.. whoa!!!! they cannot believe it.. why do you do that? how much money you sell the dogs for? … are you jewish? how!!! howw!!!!! they are turkish dogs… they are proud to be Turkish!!! they need to stay here… they are happy here protected by us, the True Turks.

Well… I will let Alex do all the talking now.. he is a Turkish dog.. he was born in a turkish family.. raised on a diet of bread and garbage, abused, dropped by the side of the road where he was injured by a passing car… then he meet us.. we healed him from his injuries, tried to find him a family in Turkey but we fail because he is not a pure breed golden retriever… so we asked him.. Alex, do you want to stay here and live a hellish life or maybe you would like to travel to Germany where you will be treated with the dignity and respect you and every dog desserves?

He choose Germany.

Our special thanks to Turkish Airlines, the best airline in the region, without whose help and support we would not be able to offer Alex and dogs like him the life they desserve.

Many thanks

Tristan… from Istanbul to Ankara..

We noticed this post in Lets Adopt..

Erol xxx wrote
at 10:36am on April 1st, 2008
arkadaslar evimde besliyecegim 1-2 aylık yavru golden retreiver arıyorum safkan olmasını istiyorum evde besliyecegim cocuklarım ufak oldugu icin yavru arıyorum cocuklarım 1 yasında ve 4 yasındadır yardımcı olacak arkadaslardanmesaj bekliyorum.
Arkadaslar telefondan ulasmak istiyen arkadaslar olursa sevinirim iş telefonum 0212 217 34 xx

We called the guy.. lets call him Erol to protect his privacy. The story goes like this.. he has a German Shepherd Puppy but (as every puppy) the dog moves around. Erol saw a picture of a golden and the dog was not moving!!! furthermore someone told him that Goldens are very quiet dogs and sit around all day!!!.. So.. Mr. Erol the man decided to get rid of the German Shepherd and adopt a Golden puppy.. very important.. it had to be pure breed!

Fast forward six hours.. the german shepherd is being picked up from Erols home. Erols calls him Pasha but we have changed his name to Tristan. İ believe people have to earn the right to name a dog. With his actions Erol lost that privilege. That guy should not own a dog.
Tristan is a wonderfully good looking, incredibly smart, affectionate and obedient (sometimes) German Shepperd Puppy.

He loves the Carrot Cake at Starbucks!

Tristan was adopted by a young couple and moved to Ankara… Hes been having Carrot Cakes every Sunday!

Yvonne and Nihan… adopted in Istanbul

Yvonne ve Nihan ormanda bulunmuş anne ve dişi yavrusu, biz onlara ikisini birden kabul edecek bir aile bulmak istiyoruz, fakat eğer sadece birisi için talep olursa ,biz bu konuda düşüneceğ.

Sahiplenme koşulları;

- Bir köpek sahibi daha olmak

- Köpeği evde sahiplenmek, bahçede bakılmamalı.

Lütfen Ivan’la bağlantıya geçin

ivan10000@gmail.com

And this is how Yvonne and Nihan ended up…

Yvonne lives now in Kemercountry in an animal loving family. Her life can be described in one word… PLAY!!!!

Hector… abandoned and rescued in Istanbul

Hector has just been abandoned by its owner.
He was found hiding under a car in Levent. They left him on the streets and drove away.
He didnt know where to go.
He didnt know what to do.
Why did they abandon him? Because he had an urinary track infection. That simple. The owner did not bother taking him to a vet.. much easier to get rid of the damm thing.

The treatment was extemely simple. It took only a week for the infection to recede. One week.. 14 tablets.

Hector is ready to join a new family.

Usual conditions apply:

- Family must have one dog already. No exceptions.

- Dog will live inside the house, not in the garden.

Contact ivan10000@gmail.com (as usual)

And this is where little big man Hector ended up!!! in bed with a biker dude !!!

We are very happy about this one… thanks a lot man.

Rommy … happily living in Germany

Susan… currently taking german lessons

Dora and Sibel

Joy… currently living in Germany.

Balu

 

 

 

 

The flight to freedom

Timur

We will never know how this wonderful german shepherd mix found himself about to be dropped in the forest by the Istanbul Municipality.

We got there in time to rescue him and give him a temporary home at SHKD, the wonderful shelter in Hasdal.

He was one of the first dogs we tried to rehome, our group had not reached a critical mass yet and people were still trying to understand how the process of adoption would work. We were not even sure ourselves.

Years of failed efforts made us loose faith in the viability of rehoming in Turkey. The Lets Adopt experiment in Facebook has proved us that it is viable, although it is difficult and the chances of failure are still high.. of course, when it works it really works!

The winter set in and Timur spent most of it at the shelter.

There were a couple of people interested but in the end things didnt materialize.

It was our friend Banu Oztas the one that gave us the idea of establishing a minimum prerequisite of one dog per home before adopting. Giving a dog in adoption is a big responsibility and pet ownership is a new concept in Turkey so the only way we have to ensure that a dog will be adopted forever and not returned to the shelter after a few weeks is only to consider adoptive families that have a dog currently living in the home. By seeing the way their dog is treated and kept we get a very good idea of how the newcomer will fit into the house.

So… Timur went to live with Banu and her cute little cocker. The two dogs became instant friends… we knew there would be no problems.

And this is how Timur lives today… gone are the cold days of winter and the horrible Municipality people. He is looking forward to continue playing with his Cocker friend and to continue protecting his new family…

Kaju… the not-so-ferocious Rotweiller

A beautiful Rotweiller puppy …
abandoned at a cemetery..
Why would anyone abandon a four month old puppy like this? We know what they did it.. the doggie was not ferocious and scary.. she would not attack.. she would not scare people.. she has the sweetest character we have seen on a very long time.
Of course that was not good for her stupid owner… he wanted something to make him look more macho!. Real men dont abandon puppies on cemeteries.

A message to our Facebook group and Kajus life changed forever.. she now lives in Istanbul, with a wonderful loving couple, another dog and two cats!

Bamby… chance of a lifetime. Adopted in Istanbul

Bamby was found in a municipal shelter. The way puppies are kept in those places defies description but in this case it was more tragic due to the fact that the pup was blind.

Her condition is a death sentence in a municipal shelter where dogs are given food and water sporadically at best. She could not have fought her way with the others in order to get even a tiny scrap of food. She had to get out of there if she was to have a chance.

We named her Bamby.

İts amazing how well a blind puppy adapts. This is due to the way dogs deal with blindness.

For a human, sight is the primary sense. For a dog, the primary sense is smell, followed by hearing. Vision is a dog’s third most important sense—that’s relatively low on the list.

Dogs also possess a skill called cognitive mapping. It’s the same instinct that allows them to find an object they buried weeks ago. That’s really handy for blind dogs. They have the house and garden mapped in their mind, and they can run full speed around the house.

Well for the most part a blind puppy is not that much different from a “sighted” puppy. Most blind puppies are born blind so this is the way the world is to them. They come into the world depending on their other senses from the very start, and those senses very often become even keener. So emphasize their other senses of smell, hearing, taste and touch in your training of your puppy.

If you do have multiple dogs already they can help your blind one. Its not uncommon to hear of sighted dogs leading, looking out for and guiding the blind ones as if they knew they couldn’t see. Many people with multiple dogs find putting bells or noisy tags on the sighted dogs collar helps guide the blind one.

I love all my dogs the same, but the bond you form with one with an impairment is amazing. They trust you enough to run beside you, to step up when you step up. The blind trust they put in you is incredible.

İf you are one of those rare dog owners for whom breed is not important and that does not consider a dog a status symbol but a living being with feelings and need we recomend adopting a handicapped dog.

What Bamy needed was a truly special person. Someone willing to go the extra mile and be a much better person for it. A message to our Facebook group and we found precisely what we were looking for.

Bamby lives now with Aylin and her family in Tarabia. She is a happy pup.

Pamuk… from rags to richess. Adopted in Istanbul

Zoe… just a dog

She left us too soon…
There are those who think we tried to hard.. that she should have been put to sleep earlier, that there were better ways to spend the money or, my favourite, why doing all this for just a dog??
İ found this on the internet… İ could have written it myself:
From time to time, people tell me, “lighten up, it’s just a dog,” or, “that’s a lot of money for just a dog.” They don’t understand the distance traveled, the time spent or the costs involved for “just a dog.”
Some of my proudest moments have come about with “just a dog.” Many hours have passed and my only company was “just adog,” but I did not once feel slighted. Some of my saddest moments have been brought about by “just a dog” and in those days of darkness, the gentle touch of “just a dog” gave me comfort and reason to overcome the day.

If you, too, think it’s “just a dog,” then you will probably understand phrases like “just a friend,” “just a sunrise,” or “just a promise.”"Just a dog” brings into my life the very essence of friendship, trust, and pure unbridled joy. “Just a dog” brings out the compassion and patience that make me a better person.
Because of “just a dog” I will rise early, take long walks and look longingly to the future. So for me and people like me, it’s not “just a dog” but an embodiment of all the hopes and dreams of the future, the fond memories of he past, and the pure joy of the moment.

“Just a dog” brings out what’s good in me and diverts my thoughts away from myself and the worries of the day.
I hope that someday they can understand that it’s not “just a dog” but the thing that gives me humanity and keeps me from being “just a person”.

So the next time you hear the phrase “just a dog”, just smile, because they “just don’t understand.”

Ciao Zoe.. well meet again one day.

Hunter… the old pointer from Beykoz

Fast forward a few months and we have the fantastic story of Hunter, the old pointer that was dropped at the doors of the Beykoz shelter, emaciated, body covered in injuries and skin reflecting years of neglect and abuse.

From the beginning Yasemin took a special liking to this old dog. He was shy, guarded and reserved. This would be no easy task. His general physical condition was also quite poor.

Think about it.. for most of his life Hunter was used as an instrument for the hunt, a brutal act. When age caught up with him he was discarded and dropped. It took months of hard work to make Hunter trust people again. Hunters future life would depend on the success of his rehabilitation.

After the outset of the events of the Beykoz shelter (www.beykozkillers.wordpress.com) Hunter was one of the few lucky dogs that we could rescue. He was very lucky. The Beykoz Municipality started an extermination campaign and surely he would have been one of the very first ones to die. From Beykoz Hunter went into the home of our of our volonteers where, for 10 days, he enjoyed a warm home, a comfortable bed and as much delicious food as he could eat!

Hunters new life had begun…

We needed to find a good family for Hunter, and we needed to do so fast. A message to the 1500 members of our Facebook group yield inmediate results. Serhat, one of our members was offering him Hunter a final home in the coastal resort of Bodrum. It only took a brief conversation with our new friend to realize that Hunter luck had just changed.

Now it was a question of flying him there… another quick message to members and a few hours later we had 5 different flight volonteers to fly Hunter to his new home by the sea.

This time it was Nilay and her friends the ones who saved the day…

Saturday, May 4th on the first flight from Istanbul Hunter started the journey to his new life..

Today we received some pics of Hunter in Bodrum… here is the old boy.. having a great life!!!! go Hunter!!! Go!!!!!

Lassie

 

Lassie was the first dog on Lets Adopt.

She was found together with her four surviving puppies at a Municipal shelter in January.

The entire family had been left to day. None of the employees of the shelters would move a finger to help those wonderful animals.

The creator of Lets Adopt rescued them all from their predicament, took them to Arti Veterinary Clinic in Levent and started to think of the ideal way to find families for those puppies and for Lassie herself once she had recovered from her ilness.

A few days Lets Adopt was created on Facebook. Initially the reaction was extremely slow and we were very worried that the group would never work. We persevered whilst Lassies health deteriorated at an alarming rate in front of our eyes.

   

Using our own personal networks we managed to rehome the pups within a weekend. Unfortunately it was too late for Lassie. We did all we could for her but she left us barely a few days later…

This is the last picture I took of Lassie shortly after her life or death operation took place.

 

 She died in our arms… sleeping on a warm comfortable bed.

It was a very sad loss.. one that made us realize the enormity of the task at hand.

Second chances.. locally and abroad.

Lets Adopt, the Facebook Adoption Group started as an effort to increase the awareness of adoption and the stray dog problem in Turkey.

The Group has quickly managed to cross the boundaries of virtuality and to turn into one of the most active animal welfare groups in Turkey. Today we are a group of over 1500 people, but this numbers multiply exponentially when counting on friends and sympathizers.

Since the beginning our biggest concern has been how to access the scores of Turkish animal lovers that, until now, never really got involved in animal welfare matters for one single reason, they could not identify with any of the existing associations, in its vast majority totally ineffective and in most cases populated by a motley crew of internet trolls with no special affinity to animals and whose only purpose seems to be to engage in ridiculous conspiracy theories and internet slander.

One of the most celebrated rumors is the one that says that some animal rescuers send dogs overseas, for experimentation in evil German laboratories and for consumption in Chinese restaurants and fur factories.

Only an idiot would believe such rumors and nonsense but  well.. there seem to be a lot of idiots around us.

Today we are starting this blog to showcase our work.

We rehome animals locally and internationally. Yes.. for years we have been sending dogs to Germany and Holland, but not to genetic experimentation factories like some of those sociopaths accuse us of. We have been sending dogs to wonderful European families that years ago stopped considering the dog a status symbol only of value if the dog is a pure breed, and instead,m consider the animal as a sentient being with exactly the same rights as a human being.. rights and needs.

Europe is years ahead of Turkey in animal matters. Those idiotic people that blindly belief that this country has nothing to learn from abroad should stop looking at their bellybutton and see the way is done elsewhere.

Anyway… it is pointless elaborating further. Those who understand understand.. and the others.. well…

This blog will showcase our work.. here you will find amazing stories of compassion, courage, resistance to adversity and above all, lots.. lots of love. Feel free to subscribe to this blog.. and if you are one of those stupid nationalists that believe ‘Turkey is dog heaven and there is no better place for a Turkish dog than a set of chains in a Turkish shelter please feel free to write to me privately on v.larkhill@googlemail.com and in two words I will tell you exactly what I think of you and your ideas..

Hello world!

Welcome to WordPress.com. This is your first post. Edit or delete it and start blogging!