I live in Kastamonu city in Turkey. This is a small city in the underdeveloped part of Turkey where most of the population is cruel and ignorant towards stray animals. There is a lot of hatred and fear among people due to current political climate and the last thing people care about is a “filthy street animals”.
My own family was similar. My grandfather used to throw stray cats to the river. However, karma has caught up with his evil deeds. On his dying breath he kept saying “Get these cats off of me”.
I became very involved with stray animals six years ago. I am an accountant by profession, but about 6 years ago I started working as traveling salesman. I would go house to house and sell everyday household products. During this time while I was on the road, I realized that there were hundreds if not thousands of poor animals in terrible conditions battling with hunger, disease, and cold trying to survive on the roadsides and edges of the forests. On another day, when I was travelling to Inebolu city, I saw dogs trying to survive in a nearby dumpster area and my heart ached.
I had recognized that something had to be done urgently and that someone had to act. I contacted the municipalities and government officials. They didn’t care at all and they told me “If you love them so much, take them all”. I asked my friends for help, their reaction was “These animals are dirty, we won’t touch them”.
So… I took things in my own hands. With the money I earned I started buying bags of dog food and medication. Because I was still living with my family, I had some additional funds that allowed me to afford all the food and medications for the poor babies. At the time I was not aware of social media, or that people would be willing to donate to worthy campaigns, so all funds were out of my pocket. Besides food and medications, I really wanted to shelter the dogs from the harsh weather here, so I saved up some money and put up simple sheds to shelter them. Two days later, the sheds were stolen by the locals. I even sold my own car to be able to afford more food for them, and I would ask my friends to land me their cars so that I could go to the feeding locations.
My work with the stray doggies continued, it never stopped.
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