Düzce: Are dogs invisible or are we invisible in the eyes of dogs?

If you visit Düzce, within a few minutes you'd notice the amount of stray dogs in the city and you'd find them quite incredible. Scattered all around the city, yet harmless, dogs in Düzce are most of the time sleeping, "like Turkish people, always lazy," a Turkish friend said. And then he told me about how the people (or the municipality, I forgot) always take some of the dogs up to the mountains, but they always find their way back to the city. It is as if they have become as much part of the city as the buildings or the trees, as Turkish as the people...

I was particularly excited to hear about a conspiracy theory (#Drama), I've heard some gossip that they are actually trying to poison the dogs through their food; which would explain their general fatigue and excessive sleepiness. Fortunately though, I've been told that there are many activists and animal lovers who are trying to make a change and to help. Unfortunately however, their presence remains mostly limited online. If anyone of you is reading this, show yourself to me, I come in peace!

Due to my fascination with the rather awkward behaviour of dogs here, I started asking everyone about them: why are they here? Why are they always sleepy? Who feeds them? etc. I was quite obsessed, and I started taking photos of the dogs I liked around the city. One of my students advised me, "don’t run if they attack, just stay calm, they're not hostile, don’t worry." It was obvious that they are friendly, when that student (who is usually terribly silent in class) started to speak I was excited and expected him to say something interesting, something I didn't know already.
I had to cover my disappointment with a smile.

"I don't know, I' don't think about it," is what another Turkish told me when I asked him about the dogs. This made me wonder, are dogs invisible? Can people actually see them? The answer I found is Yes and No. Dogs seem to be invisible, fading into the background of the city, sleeping their existence into complete oblivion. They don't seem to care about the passers by. A friend told me that after I started asking him about the dogs, he became conscious and aware about their existence in the city. He said that now he notices them, he sees them. I was also surprised to find out that the whole city doesn't have any veterinary hospital/clinic. May be the dogs are invisible to the municipality as well. May be if I ask them about the dogs they will start seeing them as well and think about opening a small clinic! I am joking! The municipality actually seems to be the only institution/people who can see the dogs. May be at first glance dogs seem invisible in this city, but if you look closer you'd notice the ear tags put by the municipality to watch over the dogs, you'd also see plates of food and water put for them all around the city. Now, let me go back to the conspiracy theory I mentioned. May be the real reason dogs are always sleepy is because, as a friend puts it, "they ain't got anything else to do . . . What would you do if you were a dog [in Düzce]?"

So, may be Düzceans are unconsciously conscious about the existence of dogs, but what if people are invisible in the eyes of dogs? Sometimes, as I stop to take a photo or two of one of them, they look at me, and start moving away in complete indifference, as if I were a mere invisible breeze they try to avoid.

I see this dog on my way to work almost
everyday so I decided to call him Oscar.

I asked a Macedonian friend living here about the dogs and she said that they walk in the streets as if they don't notice people and start bumping into them while people often have to move to let the dogs pass, "just like Turkish people," she said. I approve. Dogs in Düzce are as Turkish as the people themselves. But they are everything but "a problem." Dogs are not a problem, the way society decides to deal with them is problematic. I believe that we must unremittingly talk about dogs because they are part of this city, and we must include them in our daily lives. Bring them out of the shadows.

Pet them, feed them, take photos of/with them, play with them.
I hope this article was both amusing and interesting. :-)
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