Cukurbagli's Blog   My life in Turkey

Long-time readers of my blog will know that all my animals, (or should I say the animals that deign to live with me) are strays, or street animals as they say here. The two bigger dogs that used to live here, Wilf and Alf, were babies that I took in after a street dog delivered 12 puppies in the cloakroom of a friend of mine, Minnie joined us one day a couple of years later when they and I were out walking, then of course there is Aslan who regards my place as a hotel/hospital and comes for food and medical care but gets some gratuitous love too. Molly came after surviving an idiotic tail docking attempt by a fool in Kalkan and Stanley the cat beat them all to it by turning up in the bushes outside my house only a couple of months after I had moved in back in 2005. Well a week or so ago another dog decided I looked like a soft touch and joined in when the dogs and I were walking back from Ağullu, this time though it was a much more serious proposition because of the size of the dog.

A Turkish Mastiff breed called a Kangal is a very large dog bred to protect livestock (goats and sheep) from predatory animals such as wolves, bear and jackals. It originates from the Kangal district of the Sivas province in the central eastern part of Anatolia. Although referred to widely as sheepdogs the Kangals’ job is not to herd sheep but to act as a guardian.

Please let me introduce Pasha.

He is a beautiful big boy. I’ve found out that he is about 18 months old and spent most of that time in the local prison yard where the inmates called him Beton (Concrete in English), I guess they wanted him to be a hard man but he is one of the softest dogs I have met. Kangals have a reputation for loyalty and an innate protective nature and he seems to be displaying these qualities already. To have him living here is a delightful surprise and I will do my best to deserve his loyalty.

Here’s another photograph of him with Molly.

Talking of strays I came across another one a couple of days ago, not as big as Pasha but just as delightful. A baby tortoise, in it’s second year I think, judging by the ridges on the plates of it’s shell.

Here is a photograph of Pasha giving it a sniff, would you believe Pasha jumped back scared of it when it moved!