Stray Dogs become "Therapy Dogs"

I met Tarcin in the summer of 2010. Tarcin was a typical wild dog in Turkey. Tarcin is read as Tartune. It is cinnamon in Turkish. Her partner was Tilki. It is fox in Turkish. (I gave him this name because he looked like a fox.)

In the early summer of 2010, I met these two dogs while going to the post office for work. It was before I met the JATA. These two dogs were sitting on the street in front of the post office every day. Usually, wild dogs are thrown stones, so they are scared and go away when humans approach, but these two are different. In particular, Tarcin was very friendly, was touched his head, and ate food from my hands. At that time, I had already four Golden Retrievers in my apartment, so I could not take them home.

Tarcin seemed to have Kangal dog blood. Black mouth is like an uncle, but she is a girl. She was so charming! She was always with Tilki like twins. I went to see them almost every day because they missed me. I sometimes left water and food, but

“Don’t put food here." 

“It's annoying if they get used to sitting on the street! “

Some people have no heart. In Turkey, they do not kill street dogs, for religious reasons, so after vaccination and wearing something like a plastic tag on the ear, many dogs return to the road, as a dog in the area, a nearby person will care them. Dogs with tags are not scared by people. Maybe they knew that they were wild dogs, they never tried to follow me.

One day in the evening when such a situation lasted for about a month, I went to give food to them in the same way, After I said "bye-bye! see you tomorrow!" and then I ran the car, two of them followed me, I have never seen such a sight before. There are boulevards on my way to my house, so I thought this would be bad if they had a traffic accident, I stopped the car and gave them water and try to run the car again, but they both were still trying to follow me from behind. 

That's why Tarcin and Tilki have become my children from street dogs. As I mentioned before, I couldn’t put them in my home. I left them to a veterinarian for a while, but I wanted to give them rehabilitation and basic training. I decided to leave them with the trainer who was the owner of the dog run and pet hotel. They could run around in a large area of 3,000 square meters and they could make many friends, so they didn't have to worry about being hit by a car anymore! 

After then they spent nearly six years there, and in 2016 they came all the way to Japan by airplane.  Since then, they had played an active role as a therapy dog at Village of Fuji. (Dog's farm) A farm 2000m² where you can see great Mt, Fuji. Tarcin, who was calm and did not quarrel with any other dogs, was always very popular in the village of Fuji. Tarcin was happy to live with Tilki and other dogs there. 

From around the spring of 2019, she had trouble with her kidneys and crossed the Rainbow Bridge on November 15th. Many people were sad. She was loved by everyone, and she was active in two countries. On the day of her death, other dogs from Turkey (who also became therapy dogs from street dogs) sent her off.  She finished her life as a wonderful therapy dog!!

My dearest Tarcin, you proved that even wild dogs can be good therapy dogs. I was really happy to meet you and I was proud of you! Please keep watching us. Let's meet again! Thank you! Tarcin!

Regardless of whether you are a wild dog or a pedigree dog, dogs have the same power to heal people. JATA will continue to work hard to make everyone aware of the unlimited healing power of dogs, And I believe it will lead to decrease the number of killings in Japan. We will do our best. Please support JATA's project, “Stray Dogs become Therapy Dogs”!

Thank you for reading to the end! 

* C of TARCIN is exactly Ç.  Ç pronounced as ch in Turkish alphabets.

NPO Japan Animal Therapy Association

C.E.O  Eiko KAZAMA