I visited Greece for many years before moving there permanently with my Greek husband.  On the vacations we took to Greece, mostly to the islands, I must admit I was a pretty naive tourist, thinking ‘how nice to see all these lovely cats’ and ‘gee, wouldn’t it be nice if the U.S. allowed dogs to hang out at restaurants’ and buying all of those cute ‘Cats of Greece Calendars’. Little did I know what the truth really was. 

 

After moving to Greece with my own two cats and dog, reality hit.  First our dog, who was never out of our sight, was poisoned.  Although I didn’t know what was wrong with her, luckily I took her to the vet at the first signs of illness.  She had to have her spleen and part of her stomach removed.  On my walks through the so-called “rich neighborhood” of Kifissia, I began to find kittens, many of them not even weaned yet, thrown in the bushes or dumpsters. Several of these survived and, along with the others I found in serious condition on the streets, our family of cats grew.  When neighbors got angry with us for whatever reason, we would often find one of our animals dead and, after an autopsy, would always find it was from poison.

 

Seeking a safe haven for our ever-growing population of cats, we decided to move to Kapandriti, a rural area outside of Athens. Again, little did we know what we had in store for us.  No longer did I find kittens or starving cats on my walks - now we found dogs. And these were not the strays of Kifissia who get an occasional hand out from some friendly stranger or eat out of the dumpsters, and so seemed relatively healthy.  There are no dumpsters or friendly strangers for these dogs.  I will always remember the first one I saw - a rather large Rottweiller who was nothing but skin and bones, with a collar too tight on his neck, who sat in the same spot for over a month loyally waiting for his owner to come back.   Knowing by now that Greeks often get dogs to protect them from what they see as the “criminal and vicious immigrants”, and not as pets, it took me weeks to feel safe enough to remove the collar that would have eventually killed him.  Luckily, we met a nice Greek couple who were also leaving food and water for the dog and were going to take him home.  I left for a week and when I came back I never saw the dog again.

 

A few months into our new home in the country, our family grew to 8 dogs and, within a year, 15 dogs.  Many of these are pure bred.  With so many dogs and cats, we gave up trying to finish and furnish our house, concentrating instead on food and medicine for our pets, and I became a full time caretaker, along with an eastern European immigrant we paid and who gave more love and attention to the dogs than the so called civilized Greeks ever would.  This was fine as I loved my rather large family.  However, every day I would just have to close my eyes when ever and where ever I saw sick, abused, starving and dead dogs.  Then, one day at the end of the summer, all the dogs who I fed daily in the area were gone.  The veterinarian there, who is one of the few true Greek animal lovers, told me that a large number of dogs were found dead on the same day in three towns in the area – and the autopsies showed all died from the same poison. 

 

I didn’t see any stray dogs in the area for a few months, and then one day we saw this little ball of curly hair off to the side of the road.  Although I love large dogs, what a great sight to finally see a little thing (young, but not a puppy). We began putting food out for her everyday, trying to get closer to her as we wanted her to join our family.  She was friendly, even learned the sound of our car and would come when she heard it, dancing around and barking, but she was always too afraid to approach us.  We named her Mophead, because that is what she looked like with all that curly hair. We decided to put sedatives in her food to try to catch her.  The day we planned to try to catch Mophead there was a major snowstorm so we put it off for the next day, fearing that she might be harmed by the cold while sedated. When the snow cleared, I went to the spot we usually met to feed her the sedatives but she wasn’t there, so I began my search for her.  It didn’t take long to find her, dead in the woods. She had been shot 7 times.  I had already planned to come back to the States to finish up some work here so I left shortly after we buried her.

 

A year later I returned to my home in Greece.  Many of my cats had been shot or poisoned.  The abandoned dogs were back, as sad and pathetic as ever, and our dog family grew to over twenty as my husband just didn’t have the heart to drive past bundles of puppies thrown out along the road to die, and all the dogs we had adopted out had been returned to us. The day before I arrived, my husband picked up another stray who, while showing no signs of being pregnant, surprised us by giving birth to 7 puppies the next morning.  I never thought we could do such a thing but my husband, with my full approval, made the painful decision to euthanize all but one of them before they opened their eyes, as we could not give these puppies a home, and had no where to take them.

 

At this point, several of the villagers in the area are threatening to kill our dogs and unfortunately, with so many cats, we can’t keep all of them inside; in fact, they have already been killing them.  Many people say I should stay in Greece to help the dogs. As a Quaker, I used to believe that every human, no matter how bad they act, has good within.  However, after the death of Mophead, I found that I could no longer see good in these people, and was beginning to hate all Greeks, even though I know that there are plenty that, while not ‘loving’ animals, do take care of their pets. (I have been told by several of my friends that they don’t love their pets because they have no soul.)  I came to realize I didn’t like the kind of person I was turning into and decided to leave Greece permanently.

 

So, I am back in the States, while my husband is in Greece trying to sell the house we just built and move further out into the country, hopefully where no humans live.  Even though we have a 10’ fence with locks to protect the dogs and cats, they are still at risk.  My husband has also decided that he cannot take care of such a large family and we are trying now to rehome them outside of Greece.  As I left on short notice I was able to take only one cat who had already been vaccinated for rabies, but as soon as I find an apartment, several more will be shipped to me.  Dianne Aldan, the president of GAR-Canada and Barb Kohn of San Mateo, California are trying to help us with rehoming our animals and my husband is looking for a bank loan to send several to California. 

 

I know our story is not unique as I always see signs up, begging someone to take in a dog or puppy as the person already has 20 dogs or so and can’t take in another.  And there are Greeks, such as Tina and Nafsika and others I don’t know, who work tirelessly to take care of the animals.  Recently, new laws have been enacted to make animal abuse a crime in Greece.  A favorite saying in Greece is, “everything is illegal here but you can do whatever you want” and I am afraid that will be stand true for the new animal protection laws.   I honestly don’t know if the animal situation in Greece will change until the people do, and I don’t know if that will ever happen.

 

Written by Teri Shumate, PhD

Arkansas, U.S.A.

February 10, 2004