Its founder, Therese Sundbrink, described the formation that embraced stray animals.
What is Tails of İstanbul and what are your goals?
Tails of Istanbul is a Community network that was founded in 2016. Its aim is to connect people all over Turkey in order to help as many stray and shelter animals as possible. Another aim is to work closely with the municipalities in Turkey in order to help them strengthen the animal welfare in animal shelters. Also, that veterinary care should be easily provided for all animals in need on the streets and forests. This also requires that a strong sterilization program should be in place all over Turkey. The aim is to encourage people to never walk by an injured or sick animal. Its every person’s responsibility to help an animal in these cases and information should be available on how to help.
The name of the rescue community has grown from Tails of Istanbul to the umbrella name of Tails of Turkey. The lifelong mission is to have people part of this community in every city around Turkey.
The goals are:
- to be able to reach and help in remote areas where there are stray animals with no hope for survival
- to encourage people to help each other to help the animals. There are many people with good hearts in Turkey wanting to help animals in need, but it is not easy to do it all on our own. We need all of us to support each other and to do this for free
- to educate people on the worth of any animal and thereby have a good animal welfare in Turkey
- to have more people visit their local animal shelter. To volunteer with feeding, cleaning and finding animals there a forever home or to provide a foster home
- to always look to help in your local neighbourhood. Make it a routine to feed the stray animals in your area
- to connect other animal organisations and rescue groups in Turkey with each other and to make sure that everyone knows that they exist
How and when did this organization come about?
I had just moved to İstanbul and I saw stray cats and dogs everywhere on the streets. I was walking by a park every day to my Turkish class and there was a homeless woman living in the park. She was feeding the animals bread. I started to help to feed the cats and dogs there. I one day heard noises from her bags when she was not there. She had put an injured pigeon and a sick kitten in the same small cat carrier. I rushed to a nearby veterinary and the kitten was treated for 7 days. I visited every day and unfortunately the kitten died. Then another day there was a cat lying on the side of the road where people were walking, it had been hit by a car and I was rushing to the veterinary which did not open until 10 am.
I sat outside with the cat and it died a few minutes later. Another day I was in area where there was so many dogs and puppies living on garbage. They are very vulnerable on the street and are sometimes abused by people. I ended up spending so much of my money on helping all the animals that needed veterinary care. I started to think that its impossible to do all this without the help of others, the support, the knowledge of what to do in these cases and also what should I do with all the animals later? I had to find them homes or release them back to the street. It was so difficult to the latter and I started to try even harder to find them homes. The situation in Turkey for stray animals will make you go beyond your own sanity because all you see is animals in need, when you start to look. I started to ask myself; why is no one doing anything. Now I know that there are so many people who are in fact doing so much….but what about the rest of you?
I also wrote to every animal shelter in İstanbul saying that I wanted to start to volunteer, I got only one reply. I went there two days later, and I was helping to feed the motherless kittens and petting the dogs out by the café.
A few days later I found myself running back to see the kittens again, they had all died. At that time, I could not understand why? I decided to go more often since the kittens needed to be bottle-fed. Later they said that there was a cathouse there for disabled cats that no one went to. When I went in there I was in shock, it was so dirty the smell was horrendous. There was poo, pee and food mixed on the floor. There were dirty, injured and sick cats about 40 -50 cats in each small room. If I did not go there it could go 2 days before it was cleaned there or that they got any food. I started to go every day to clean. I could only be there for about 3 hours because of opening hours so I was really trying to work fast. Some days on my way home I was crying because I felt so sorry for these animals. I knew I had to become friends with them at the shelter because if not they could just forbid me to go there if I told them too much of my opinions. I could tell you many stories, but I just decided not to give up. For a few months I spend about 5 days a week at the shelter and I was picking up dead cats, trying to brush them and clean them and begging the veterinary onsite to go in there. They said its no point they are all sick. I later started a fundraiser to renovate the cat area and the shelter accepted. With the help of many people we paid for a construction company to take away the wooden floors, stop the water leakages and to put up new dividers and sterilize the area. In memory of all animals who have died there – the renovation was done for them. The adoption rate of the cats at the shelter was zero. They did not even promote them on the internet or tell anyone of them.
They said that no one wants a sick cat. I decided to start to try to find homes for them. At first the shelter said no but after a few months they allowed me to find homes and many died in the end but at least we tried, and some are now living in families in Turkey and all over the world.
The dogs in shelters are put to a chain for years, are never able to go for a walk. Sat behind bars with 5 other dogs in a few sqm space or 10 dogs in small rooms with not even daylight. There are also areas in animal shelters where there are several hundreds of dogs. They fight and die. They only get some food and that is it. The municipalities do not want dogs on the streets, and they put them in shelters or drive them out in the forests. There are so much despair in countries where there are stray animals. We are never fully learned in this area and I know that there are a lot that I still do not know or understand but I can say that out of the things I have seen it is enough to understand that animals are suffering and we all need to do something to help.
It is not the fault of the animals that they are where they are. It is not the fault of the staff working in shelters that they do not have more time than they have on their hands, or that the municipality staff cannot be in every single corner of Turkey or that there is not enough homes for every animal to go to or that there is not enough medicine at shelters to treat the animals. In the end of all of this it is actually the normal every person in a society who is to blame for the situation. That we go about our everyday as if there are no problems in this world. Please ask yourself what you actually do to help the stray animals in Istanbul? If you are doing something, then why don’t you tell everyone about that and get more people to do the same. If you are not doing anything, that is ok you did not know. But now when you do, why don’t you start by visit your local animal shelter and ask them how you can help them? Or go out to the local park and give the animals food. Trust me the animals around you need YOU.
How does the process of adopting an animal through Tails of İstanbul work?
We publish animals on the Instagram page called Tailsofistanbul and on the Facebook pages called Tails of Turkey and Tails of İstanbul. People contact us asking either about a specific animal or saying that they want to adopt. There is no administration cost involved or any other cost. The costs involved is only for veterinary care of an animal if needed before going to the home. If adoptions abroad it’s only the actual cost of preparing the animal before their travel. Cats and dogs are travelling to the EU, Canada and the USA mostly.
Often also people contact us saying that they are leaving Turkey to their home country, but it is not enough time to prepare the animals passport to the EU which takes 4 months. Then we help to find the animal a foster home during this time before the animal can travel.
Are you running this project alone? What challenges do you face?
Yes, I see this as a lifelong Project and that involves me being able to do it all on my own. It is many decisions involved and its animal lives and I have built strong contacts with people in Turkey that trust me.
However, I have friends who are great people who loves animals and who are helping with various things such as finding foster homes, forever homes, transport, helping with Turkish translations and with social media. We need all of us to be part of this Rescue community – if we were, we could do so much more.
The challenges are to find someone who helps with transport of animals. There are many times that an animal needs to go to a foster home, and I end up paying a lot of money that could be spent on much better things. Or in terms of sterilisation work, it takes a person to go and catch the animal, to bring it to a veterinary and then to bring the animal back to the exact same place. Ideally and the goal is to work together with the municipalities on this, but they do not keep animals overnight. So, when an animal needs to recover from surgery then they have nowhere to go. Here we need a temporary home for an animal for 1-4 days where the animal can recover before going back to the Street.
Another challenge is to reach out and help people in all parts of Turkey. There are no veterinary clinics in some areas of Turkey. It is so heart-breaking when not knowing how to be able to help. The animals are multiplying, puppies die and there is just no municipality or veterinary nearby to help.
The challenges are also when to help and not. I have decided that I try to do my best to help in every case.
How do you keep yourself motivated?
The motivation is found in past experiences. I am determined to try to make things better, it is possible.
What do you do besides Tails of İstanbul? How did you decide to live in İstanbul?
I am now living back in Stockholm, Sweden. I am working at an investment bank with Events and Company relations. I am also a volunteer at Amnesty Sweden. I have lived abroad for 10 years of my life and in İstanbul for 3 years. I visited İstanbul once and completely fell in love with the city. It’s the most fascinating city in the world I believe. I still visit twice a year and I am in contact with people, veterinarians, shelters etc everyday – so my heart is still there every day.
How has the pandemic affected homeless animals?
It has affected the finances of people in Turkey. Less money to spend and then less is spent on animals. The virus makes commuting more difficult, so people do not visit shelters as much anymore.
There are also less people on the streets so not as many animals are being fed. Also, when restaurants and shops close that used to feed the animals, those animals are left alone.
People are also leaving more house pets on the streets. They cannot afford to keep them at home anymore. Imagine the struggle for this animal on the street without knowing how to survive on their own.
Its cruel beyond anything else to leave an animal on the street.
There are also less flights for animals to travel to their forever homes abroad. The pandemic has a great impact on stray animals and shelters, and we all need to really try even harder than before.
For those who might not be able to adopt right now, what are the ways of getting involved with or help Tails of İstanbul?
If you cannot adopt right now, then please try to find someone who can?
- Or you can maybe be a temporary home for an animal whilst waiting for it to find a forever home?
- You are also more than welcome to get in contact at tailsofistanbul@com if you would like to volunteer.
- Please visit your local animal shelter and volunteer.
- Join our groups on Social media and Help us to spread the word by sharing our published posts on Instagram and Facebook
Most important of all please help us to make our rescue community to grow – by doing this more animals lives will be saved.
instagram.com/tailsofistanbul, facebook.com/tailsofistanbul