A guide
How to adopt a street dog from Turkey
People ask the same three questions, in the same order. How does it work. How long does it take. What will it cost me. Here are the answers, without decoration.
Cappadocia · Turkey
When you rescue a dog, he ends up rescuing you.
They say that. It is true. I was minutes from boarding a hot-air balloon I had already paid for when I found a one-month-old puppy dying in the street. I cancelled the tour, lost the money, and picked him up. His name is Doccio. He is the reason this foundation exists — and the balloons went up without me.
2,000 dogs. A vet. People who show up every day. And no walls.
What you give buys veterinary treatment, medicine, food and transport in Turkey. There are no salaries, no offices and no fundraising overhead — there are none to pay.
The count
One dog, and then it did not stop at one.
1
DoccioThe puppy in the street in Cappadocia. He is
the reason there is a foundation at all.
300+
Have found a homeAdopted and placed. Every one of
them left the same open ground the others are still standing on.
2,000+
In our care todayFed, treated and looked after every
day by a vet and by local people who show up whether or not anyone is watching.
0
WallsNo heating in winter. No shade or cooling in
summer. Two thousand dogs on open land — which, for a dog, is still the street.
This is the number we are asking you to change.
Every photograph on this site was taken by Saelyra or by the people who care for the dogs on the ground. Nothing here is stock.
The truth
The truth about where they live.
There are more than 2,000 dogs in our care right now.
They are not abandoned twice. There is a veterinarian on the ground. There are local people who show up every day to feed them, clean them, hold them.
But they live on open land. No heating in winter. No shade or cooling in summer. For a dog, that is still the street — just a street with someone who cares.
And that is the part we cannot fix with love alone. We can treat an infection. We can fill a bowl. We cannot make a dog survive a Turkish winter with no walls around it.
What we need is simple, and it is not sentimental:
A real shelter
Walls, a roof, warmth in winter and shade in summer — a place where 2,000 dogs can survive long enough to be adopted.
Food
Every day, for all of them.
Medicine and veterinary care
The vet is there. The supplies run out.
Every donation goes to those three things. There are no salaries, no offices, no fundraising overhead — because there are none to pay.
On the ground
The woman who carries all of this.
Her name is Başak.
I met her there. She is the one who stays when the cameras leave — feeding, treating, holding, burying, starting again the next morning. Two thousand dogs are alive because one woman refuses to walk away from them.
I have met a lot of people who care. I have met very few who carry.
She should not be doing this alone. That is the whole reason this page exists.
Saelyra Salazar, founder
Why we are asking
I have funded this myself. I can no longer carry it alone.
Saelyra Salazar, founder
Every rescue so far has been paid for out of my own pocket, from the proceeds of a business I closed and largely gave away. We have never run a public fundraising campaign. This is the first time I have asked anyone for anything.
Istanbul is punishing in both directions — very hot, and then very cold. Puppies catch parvovirus every season and the treatment runs for weeks. The medication costs more than the people caring for these dogs on the ground can absorb out of their own wages.
And the shelter is not a shelter. It is built out of boxes.
The dogs
The ones who are waiting.
Photographs and video from Istanbul are on their way and will appear here. Nothing on this site is stock imagery. When a dog appears, that dog is real, and you can write and ask about him by name.
Photograph coming
Photograph coming
Photograph coming
Video coming
The story
It was a Sunday, and everything was closed.
His belly was swollen with worms, bigger than the rest of him, and he would not open his eyes. People walked past him. When I asked locals what to do, some of them laughed — a dying puppy in the street is an ordinary thing there.
Our hotel called its own veterinary hospital, and the vets opened it just for us.
Two weeks
That is how long a dog has out there. Two weeks on that land, in that weather, with what we can carry to them. The ones you see on this page are not waiting comfortably. They are waiting against a clock.
From the journal
If you want to know what you are actually looking at.
From the ground
What a winter does to a dog with no walls
We can treat an infection. We can fill a bowl. We cannot make a dog survive a Turkish winter with nothing around it.
The beginning
Doccio: the puppy who chose to live
He was left to die in the street. A broken tail, alone, about a month old. His eyes had barely opened.
You can take one home, or you can keep one alive.
Not able to do either right now? Send this page to one person who might.