Honouring Türkiye’s Strays Who Make Wonderful Pets: The Story of Beyaz & Beyaz

I had the privilege of getting to know these two wonderful creatures back in Türkiye many years ago.

Beyaz (the dog) was a stray who was loved by many, which is why she had a name; her name, Beyaz, means white.

She’d already had pups not far from my restaurant (her last litter and Beyaz’s swollen nipples below).

Unfortunately, some of them got run over. The memory of witnessing something horrible like that is etched in my memory that I cannot forget. But it didn’t end there. Some of Beyaz’s babies were shot by the gendarme too for reasons I still don’t understand.

For that reason, she hated the gendarme. She bit them every chance she had, even though they were not the ones who shot her babies, because every year, there were a fresh bunch of young people doing their military service sent to the area, but Beyaz hated them all the same. I’ve always had a feeling that Beyaz was going for the smell of their rifles, not the soldiers themselves.

Animal lovers got together, and we collected money so that Beyaz could be spayed. Many contributed.

After the operation, an elderly lady adopted her. Sort of. She was a local retired physical education teacher who used to swim 9 months a year. I remember her, at 80, quite slim, her silver hair bunched at the top of her head, and full of anger.

Beyaz now had a home. Like I said, sort of. The lady from across the street took some responsibility, like feeding her and housing her in her garden—Beyaz was an excellent guard dog, by the way—but every time Beyaz bit yet another gendarme and they came complaining, she referred to Beyaz as ‘an animal of the street’.

Then came the other Beyaz, the cat. Dog Beyaz took her in immediately. She was such a maternal being; she even breast-fed her! I remember all those tourists taking photos and videos while Beyaz was breastfeeding Beyaz. I don’t know about you, but I’d never seen anything like it before.

Here, Beyaz is grooming Beyaz.

At the time, we were serving English food at our restaurant—and, of course, serving meat. Something I haven’t touched for the last 30 years. Every time we had leftovers, we fed the strays.

One day, I had a piece of fish, and I took it to Beyaz—the dog. She gently picked it up, but she wouldn’t eat it. Instead, she took it to the house’s gate and started crying. I will never forget the way she was literally whistling through her nose. Beyaz, the cat, appeared out of nowhere. Beyaz, the dog, put the fish in front of Beyaz, the cat, so the cat could eat it.

Unfortunately, Beyaz, the dog, died from a preventable worm infestation. If we had known, we would’ve given her worming tablets. That had happened before I left my home country. At the time, Beyaz the cat was still alive, searching for her dog mum.

This is the story of Beyaz & Beyaz…