Harem

And yet another doggie story.

Our (Turkish) neighbours have an elderly dog which has spent almost his entire life attached to a rope. His rickety kennel was balanced precariously on some rocks and afforded little shelter. However, last year he suddenly became free, whether by means or accident we don't know. All went well with the dog ambling around trailing his rope until he killed one of another neighbour's turkeys. He was recaptured and back to the rope and the rickety kennel, which by this time had been moved to a piece of flat ground. As well as spending most of his life attached to the rope, he didn't enjoy very tasty meals - well, to be honest, a bit of dry bread occasionally, although he did have water. About two weeks ago he was free again. I would see him wandering slowly around and could tell that his sight wasn't too good. For the past two days there hasn't been a sign of him, very unusual.

This morning I was on my way to a local farm for provisions when I saw his head peeping up on the opposite side of the road. I went over to offer him some biscuits and saw what I thought was a lump of raw, bleeding meat beside him. On closer inspection it was revealed to be one of his hind feet. It looked as though his foot had been run over, dragging the skin from it.

To cut a long story short, with the help of other neighbours we managed to contact one of the local vets and we were able to get the poor animal to the surgery. His operation lasted one and a half hours, resulting in the loss of the foot. It appeared that the injury was at least a couple of days' old. He is in a very sorry state, covered in dried blood, but is resting in our garden. At the moment I am not sure that we have done the right thing for him and wonder whether it would have been better to have peacefully ended his sad life.