Dogs

Also available as a podcast:

One of the most distinctive features of the highland Steppe of Central Turkey are the massive and ferocious sheep dogs, called Kangal.

There are a lot of wolves there and the Kangals are bred to protect the sheep and goats. They have collars with huge spikes designed to prevent the wolves savaging their necks which make them look particularly menacing, like extras from a Mad Max film. They roam free and are very aggressive to anyone who comes near their flock. So, I always carried a stick and a dog ‘pepper spray’.

I’d had a few run ins with them early on in my trip.

On the second day I was cycling along a rough track beside a pasture full of grazing sheep. Out of the corner of my eye I saw two shapes moving quickly towards me and then heard their deep barking. Instinctively, I cycled faster along the bumpy track. The shepherd was shouting something at me but all I was focusing on were the dogs which were now snapping at my back tyre. One slip and I’d be within biting range. Incredibly, I managed to out pace them.

Later I realised that the way to handle them is to stop, get off your bike, sound calm and re-assuring - even if your heart is racing - and let them sniff you. This was probably what the shepherd was shouting for me to do. So now, I follow the doctrine made famous by the early 20th century US president, Theodore Roosevelt, and I ‘speak softly and carry a big stick’, and it seems to work.

Anyway, this is the story of one of many night-time dog encounters.

Deep into the night I hear goats followed by the ferocious barking of a couple of Kangals, which seem to be circling all around me. I’m there in my tent at the ready with my ‘pepper spray’, stick and head torch. I’m trapped inside and can’t spring up like I could when I slept without a tent, just on a mat. Here on the high Steppe its too cold to be outside and even in the tent its freezing. My light blanket provides little warmth and I put the hood of my coat around my feet for extra insulation.

At one point, just outside the tent close to my head, there is the sound of one of the dogs gnawing heavily on a bone. I’m on tenterhooks, and with every bite imagining that its me pinned down between the dogs mighty paws. I try to sleep but its disturbed and fitful. Besides, when I’m cold the night seems endless. I turn a lot, like some rotisserie chicken - sometimes on my back, sometimes on my side, even on my front – but can’t get comfortable, or warm.

Finally its dawn. I want to get up but the dogs are close to the tent. I can hear their breathing and I worry that as I kneel to unzip the door we will come face to face. I have to do something and so slowly I unzip the tent. There with its back to me, right in front of the door, is one of the dogs. Using the Roosevelt Doctrine I speak very quietly and reassuringly, whilst pointing at it with the pepper spray, thumb on the trigger. Calmly it turns to face me, and wags its tail. It gently gets up, comes over, says hello, moves off to side, and sits. I notice the second dog in the same position on the opposite side of the tent. This dog, who at one point the previous evening had chased an enormous deer with huge antlers, now follows the first dogs lead and comes over and couldn’t have been more friendly.

All that barking in the night wasn’t to harass me, but to protect me.

So I’ve come full circle with the dogs. From fleeing in terror as they chase after me snapping at my heels, to understanding how to handle them, and maybe because of that seeing them, and they seeing me, in a different and friendlier light. After all, we were the first animals to form friendship and co-dependency and for the last seventy thousand years we've been protecting and comforting each other. And from then on most of my encounters with dogs would be positive, and for several day’s hiking I was joined by wild dogs, to share food and companionship, and to fill the loneliness I hadn’t realised was there.