Dog Days in North Cyprus

Owning a dog in North Cyprus comes with a whole range of new perilous hurdles to traverse (can you traverse a perilous hurdle?) - well, anyway, issues you’d never necessarily dream of when planning on getting a hound.

I’ve always wanted a doggy of mine very own and now I have one (pictured) I love him with the fierceness of a mummy lion guarding her cubs...but now that I have one I also kinduv wish I’d never wanted one in the first place...you see, North Cyprus is not an easy place to be when you’re a dog.

We have hundreds and hundreds of stinky stray mongrels wandering about - actually many of them are latch key dogs or dogs who have managed to eat through the chain that had been tying them to a stake in the middle of the garden for the past ten years.  But whatever - they all share three things in common - fleas and ticks and a nasty attitude.

As a human (that’s me) you don’t really come into contact with them too often unless you stray off the beaten track and into their territory and then it’s only an issue if they have puppies and then you can get attacked for sure.  But most of the time you only spot them when they’ve been run over or if you live near waste land where they sometimes roam.

But now it seems that I smell like a dog.  I have a puppy (his name is Cheese) and he’s not allowed out yet (injections outstanding) so when I go for a walk without him I must give off a powerful doggy smell from all the cuddles he’s subjected to because on the past two evenings I have been accompanied on my walk by a stray - a different one each night mind you.

The night before last it was a HUGE black dog with a tail as long as a long thing and then last night it was a chewed up, daft boxer type bitch...they followed me all the way there and all the way back and right up to my front door.  Now I had Cheese inside and so wasn’t in the market for another dog but they had no care for my bad attitude and sat on my step.

Well, now, my Cheese is only wee, no more than knee high to a grasshopper really but I opened the door and I think his blue eyes scared them away (Cheese is a rescued Weimaraner, they have blue eyes ya know!).  But now I’m too afraid to go out again in case more of them appear.

What’s worse, far worse is the fact that when walking around the village of Ozankoy here in Northern Cyprus with my stray friends I become a target for every other dog - stray or otherwise - and they all rush out with killer fangs exposed and hackles raised right up.  What am I going to do when my little Cheese is a Big Cheese and ready to go walkies?  How will I fend off all these evil hounds that are lurking about behind walls, next to gates, on chains, in kennels...what am I going to do to defend my dog?

Seriously, not only might he get attacked but he might get fleas and ticks and bird flu and develop a seriously bad habit and become belligerent and want a door key of his own?  I don’t want him turning out like a typical North Cyprus dog.  How can I protect him?

And you know what’s worse?  Poison.  So scared are the Cypriots of the bloody dogs they are responsible for allowing to breed, that they lay poison to kill them.  Oh my GOD - my Cheese is a canine hoover...he lives nose to the floor and sucks up any morsel.  How will I stop him eating poison?  Even when on his lead he still manages to snuffle up the odd crumb.  A muzzle maybe?  But then how will he defend himself from the stinking hounds that come to attack him?  Ah man oh man, I’m gonna have to buy a treadmill for Cheese.