For the love of cats in Turkey | Hacker News Reader

For the love of cats in Turkey

sapiens.org

72 pointsCaiero12 comments

Even though it is all cool about having well treated strays on Istanbul. There's also a non-negligible number of rabies cases in the city. Both from stray dogs and cats.

Last year I got scratched by a stray cat (details are unnecessary, but I was trying to help it to get out of a ledge it got stuck), and I was surprised to discover there was a small but existent chance of getting rabies. After pondering about it and getting advice from friends from the city, I decided to go on the arduous mission of getting a rabies shot on a holiday, not all hospitals work on holidays, even fewer speak English on a basic level. Even though I enjoyed my staying in general, this whole experience was a real PITA. Specially when I come from a place where rabies was practically erradicated in the last decades

Sorry to hear that happened to you. Though as far as I know rabies is eradicated in the dog and cat population in the west of the country, especially in Istanbul. Municipalities vaccinate stray cats and dogs. It happens in the more remote areas in the east, but mainly in the dog population. Rabies in cats is rare as far as I know.

The dogs are quite a big problem to be honest, but cats are ok. They don't harm people ir spread disease. One can argue seagulls are a bigger problem in Istanbul :)

Yeah, I know it's a very slim chance. But rabies is, for all practical sense, a 100% mortality disease, so I couldn't risk not having a shot. I still had to continue getting the treatment (usually 4 doses) when I got home

It’s not just cats. Stray dogs are also treated well in Istanbul. Surprisingly, the cats and dogs coexist in the same spaces without conflict.

The more I watch cat-dog interactions, the more I feel that cats vs dogs is just a myth created by media and literature for content. Never saw dogs aggressively behaving against cats, or cats bothering dogs. If I found a dog barking at a cat, it was more likely that it was the type which would bark at anything that moved.

I own multiple dogs and cats, and they've never been anything but friendly to each other.

I myself have a Japanese Akita and a long hair Munchkin, they get along really well. Many friends of mine also have both dogs and cats in their home, they don't fight each other at all and can be really intimate sometimes.

AFAIK the is more probable if at least one of them met the other species while being young. Ideal case: both individuals met while being newborns.

Side note, on mobile I'm finding the page starts vibrating like mad as I try to scroll it. It's quite jarring.

That's just the purring of the cats.

Not only Turkey, it is quite common across all Mediterrean countries.

I can personally vouch for this.

In Morocco cats were everywhere. Cafes, high rises, farms, University, everywhere I went.

Even the airport! As we queued up to the ticket counter (this was decades ago) i saw cats wandering independently. I mused to my companion, "i wonder if they get into the secure area of the airport?"

Sure enough, after going through security and waiting at the gate, there goes a feline walking by wholly unbothered.

I wondered if cats ever got onto planes unwittingly. Didn't see any on our plane ... still wonder.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com