Heybeliada (and Istanbul, and Turkey in general I think) goes in for street cats and dogs in a big way. I'm not sure they could accurately be described as 'strays', as most seem to have a very clear stomping ground, and a very firm idea of where they get their grub from - usually a combination of rubbish bins and the benevolent public putting out scraps.
But on the other hand they most definitely aren't anybody's pets. Actually, when I first came here on holiday it was something that really jumped out at me, (Literally!! Ah ha ha!!! No, not literally at all - read on.) all the cats minxing insolently about and packs of dopey looking dogs sat in the middle of the road.
All these street creatures, great and small, are dead laid back though. Which came as a relief, about the dogs in particular what with me not being the biggest fan and all that. (In my experience big scary dogs are big and scary, and small yappy type dogs are just...unnecessary. They yap too much, y'all! And on occasion sick on you, or shit. How is that cute?)
But this lot here are all of a nonchalent bent, and whilst they might follow you up the street a bit or make a half-arsed attempt to sniff at your backside - they're obviously not *that* fussed, and at the slightest discouragement give up and slouch away again.
I reckon there's got to be an element of town based natural selection going on here. As I understand it, going back decades at least and I think centuries, the authorities from time to time make an attempt at sweeping up the streets and dealing with the dog population once and for all. But - if they're not much bother and don't harm anyone, they presumably fall down the list of things for the municipality to worry about. So for dogs, there's got to be an evolutionary advantage to being docile.
For the cats, well it's a bit more complicated. They seem to fall in two camps - scraggy, feral, nimble on their toes around the dustbins streetwise scrappers. Or sleek, sweet, and dumb as fuck charmers.
We seem to have acquired one of the latter - look at the poor little sod below, trying to stretch his legs and nose out into the sun to prolong the basking. (I don't have photographic evidence, but believe me - he was still in the same spot half an hour later, by now completely in the shade, waiting for the sun to go back on 5 billion year's habit, and move back in the sky to where it was. Bless. Idiot.)
Anyway. This one hasn't exactly been encouraged round our manor, so much as not-quite-as-vehemently disencouraged as the other nasty furballs that turn up whenever we have a barbeque. The others get a chasing, or an olive stone or two chucked in their general direction. But this one - it has to be admitted, on purely aesthetic reasons - gets tolerated. It's got a name and everything - Kuş burnu - literally translates as 'bird nose', but means rosehip. (Which earns me nothing but disapproval from the neighbours, I'm sure - when I come home it bounds up to me in the misapprehension it's going to get something from me - mistaking me for the softer touch, S, no doubt. Anyway, in the process of saying hello/fuck-off, scrounger, there's a lot of "what's going on, Kuş, how you doing, Kuş" etc etc, which no doubt the nosy neighbours take as my dire turkish not being able to distinguish between cats and birds...)
All these street creatures, great and small, are dead laid back though. Which came as a relief, about the dogs in particular what with me not being the biggest fan and all that. (In my experience big scary dogs are big and scary, and small yappy type dogs are just...unnecessary. They yap too much, y'all! And on occasion sick on you, or shit. How is that cute?)
But this lot here are all of a nonchalent bent, and whilst they might follow you up the street a bit or make a half-arsed attempt to sniff at your backside - they're obviously not *that* fussed, and at the slightest discouragement give up and slouch away again.
I reckon there's got to be an element of town based natural selection going on here. As I understand it, going back decades at least and I think centuries, the authorities from time to time make an attempt at sweeping up the streets and dealing with the dog population once and for all. But - if they're not much bother and don't harm anyone, they presumably fall down the list of things for the municipality to worry about. So for dogs, there's got to be an evolutionary advantage to being docile.
For the cats, well it's a bit more complicated. They seem to fall in two camps - scraggy, feral, nimble on their toes around the dustbins streetwise scrappers. Or sleek, sweet, and dumb as fuck charmers.
We seem to have acquired one of the latter - look at the poor little sod below, trying to stretch his legs and nose out into the sun to prolong the basking. (I don't have photographic evidence, but believe me - he was still in the same spot half an hour later, by now completely in the shade, waiting for the sun to go back on 5 billion year's habit, and move back in the sky to where it was. Bless. Idiot.)
Anyway. This one hasn't exactly been encouraged round our manor, so much as not-quite-as-vehemently disencouraged as the other nasty furballs that turn up whenever we have a barbeque. The others get a chasing, or an olive stone or two chucked in their general direction. But this one - it has to be admitted, on purely aesthetic reasons - gets tolerated. It's got a name and everything - Kuş burnu - literally translates as 'bird nose', but means rosehip. (Which earns me nothing but disapproval from the neighbours, I'm sure - when I come home it bounds up to me in the misapprehension it's going to get something from me - mistaking me for the softer touch, S, no doubt. Anyway, in the process of saying hello/fuck-off, scrounger, there's a lot of "what's going on, Kuş, how you doing, Kuş" etc etc, which no doubt the nosy neighbours take as my dire turkish not being able to distinguish between cats and birds...)
ANYWAY, the point of this ramble is to bring you on to some quite vile truths about (my) nature. S found a bunch of kittens in one of the bins yesterday - most of them apparently nosing around for food, but this one below just sat there dazed and confused. So she rescued him and brought him home.
How cute! Even I was impressed. Daw, how cute. BUT. and this is the crucial point - not cute enough. Like I said she found it in the rubbish and it looked like it, it was all claw-y, and screamed incessantly, and despite being obviously weaned, with big teeth and all, couldn't work out what to do with the food we put down directly in front of it.
So we did the reasonably decent thing, and gave it milk and food and all that shit, and gave it a basket and blankets to sleep in outside, hoped against hope that it would work out how to, yanno, eat and drink by itself, and not go wandering off after dark.
But there was a lot of squawking in the night, and when we woke up, no cute little kitty. Bastard must have died. Anyway, this is my point - if it was just a *bit* more cute, we might have brought it in. If it weren't *quite* so dumb, it might, like its brothers and sisters in the rubbish bins, have worked out how to scrap for food, or at least stayed where it was put once it had failed to strike out on life on its own. As it is - aw, I can't believe I'm actually feeling bad for the little fluffball, but I am - as it is, I do believe it got ate.
RIP little kitty. Don't sic the RSPCA on me, everybody else.
I nominate this as "Best Thing I Have Ever Read That Ends Up With A Dead Kitty."
ReplyDeleteIt's the circle of life, dude. Poor little bugger.
Lovely post, please and thank you. And you've only got 3 days left to maintain your post symmetry, by the way HOW THE BASTARD HELLS DO YOU SPELL SYYMMETTRRY I HAVE NEVER KNOWN so that's something.
Oh you can talk to me about maintaining posting promises, eh, little miss one-a-day? (I'm joking, by the way. But was enjoying your brief glut of jrme stuff - keep it up, dude!)
ReplyDeletePoor dead kitty. I have lots of very cute photos of it with S (should I be calling her Mrs I.E.D., in blog format?) but stopped short of publishing them because it would make me look like a ridiculous mockery of a childless lesbian. Hmm.