Hacker News Reader

Comment by unsupp0rted | Hacker News Reader

I wish Turkey would do this too. Street dogs gather in packs and periodically attack people: not just small children, they go after grown men and women who are just walking down the street during daylight hours. This is true in major cities, like Ankara.

When I’m there I avoid walking around after sunset or in areas without people, primarily because I don’t want to be stuck in the open with 3 or 4 hungry street dogs hunting me.

View on HN

> Street dogs gather in packs and periodically attack people: not just small children, they go after grown men and women who are just walking down the street during daylight hours.

This happened to me at night in Istanbul 10 years ago. I was walking down a side street and a pack of 5-6 dogs noticed me and began to follow me. At first they were tentative, but increasingly the bolder ones in the group closed the distance. I began moving more quickly, but stepping backward, facing the dogs.

They clearly had violence on their minds. By the time I was approaching a well-lit main street, I had been lunged at a dozen times, with each dog only thinking better of it at the last instant.

I only had a backpack which I could use as a blunt weapon, and if the other dogs joined in following a strike from one of the boldest, I was not at all confident in the outcome. Easily one of the scariest experiences of my life.

Maybe someone from Turkey can shed light but it seems to have become much better. In 2019 all strays were tagged and I was under the impression any ill behaved one would be dealt with.

I wonder how common this is as a cause of death.

There's a very vocal population of dog haters. You'd hear about it if anybody died.

Turkey is very close to social collapse. People take every opportunity to hate on another group. This goes for the other side -dog lovers- too.

In Thailand street dogs have learned to fear the sound of an electric tazer.

I used to live there and always carried one with me, just to activate it was enough to scare them off.

I remember once being awake at night, sick with some flu, and a street dog just would not stop barking. I hear a gate/window open, a tazer activates and the dog stops. So this was just a guy sticking his hand out a window and activating the tazer to get the dog to shut up.

It's a hard life out there for those dogs.

Also in most such countries if you pick up a rock as if to throw it at them it scares them off as the locals often throw rocks quite effectively.

This happens in India[1,2] too, and rabies cases are sadly all too common there, so I applaud Bhutan for its success.

Are there any lessons for other countries in what Bhutan has achieved?

Eg for India a concern is: even with a real effort it’ll be difficult just given the size of the place and the routes available for other dogs to move in.

Then there’s massively underfunded local government and corruption to consider (and harder to fix). Charities do what they can but it’s a drop in the ocean.

[1] https://www.cnn.com/2023/04/01/india/india-stray-dog-attack-...

[2] https://scroll.in/article/1056464/why-is-india-seeing-so-muc...

I have similar concerns about Bhutan. There might just come more across the borders.

They already do? If you see a dog that has their ear marked, it means the dog has been sterilized by the municipality. If you want to help, you can take ant stray dog to a vet and they will sterilize the dog for free.

The real problem is the “people” who attack the dogs for no reason and teach them to be violent. Dogs are very social animals and they learn to respond to the society they are in. Where I live the biggest problem we have with stray dogs is we feel sorry for some of them being obese.

Maybe 1/5 or 1/10 street dogs I’ve seen in Ankara are ear tagged.

The ones you see sitting around in the same spot on multiple days are eartagged, but there are a lot more transient ones.

I remember being chased by a pack of at least twenty angry wild dogs. This was in India, not a fun experience.

Similar experience. One of them even tried to go for my leg. Had a very very bright flashlight which I used to blind them. After that I walked with a sharp ended walking pole and would not hesitate to stab them with it. It was a very hairy situation. Did not encounter the pack again since I stopped moving around the town at dark.

Even in the West I now have to walk with a break stick in my bag thanks to dumb cunts adopting pitbulls and letting them roam offleash.

Nobody is willing to treat animals like animals any more. It's obscene.

I thought it was a cat nation since the prophet had one and dogs are considered unclean in Muslim tradition.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com