Aydın’s Missing Dogs: The Streets Are Empty, The Shelter Isn’t Full, So Where Have They Gone?

For almost a year we have watched municipalities across Türkiye celebrate the number of dogs they have removed from the streets. Hundreds, thousands. Sometimes tens of thousands.

Every announcement is accompanied by promises of protection, rehabilitation and care. Yet there is one question that grows louder with every collection campaign.

Where are the dogs?

That question is now at the centre of serious allegations surrounding the Aydın Metropolitan Municipality Street Animal Protection and Rehabilitation Centre, where campaigners claim thousands of collected dogs cannot be accounted for. Animal rights advocate İbrahim Kaya has called for an independent investigation after alleging that dogs were injected before being loaded into vehicles, that animals were taken into a building believed by campaigners to contain a morgue, and that those seeking answers were denied access to the facility.

Our concern, however, goes far beyond one newspaper report.

Dog Desk Animal Action has worked with community carers in Aydın whose dogs have been collected. These were not anonymous animals. They were dogs that had names, routines and people who looked after them every single day. After they were taken, those carers searched for them at the municipal shelter. They were not there.

That fact alone does not tell us what happened to those dogs, but it does reinforce exactly the same question that campaigners are now asking publicly. If they are no longer on the streets, and they are not in the shelter, where are they?

This is precisely why we have consistently opposed the removal of free roaming dogs from the communities they know. Once a dog disappears behind the gates of a municipal facility, transparency becomes everything. Without complete records, the public is simply expected to trust that every animal is safe, and trust on its own is not enough when thousands of lives are involved.

The figures being reported simply do not appear to match what people are seeing. Since the amended law came into force, municipalities across Türkiye have announced the removal of enormous numbers of dogs from public spaces. In Aydın, campaigners argue that when the collections carried out by the metropolitan municipality and all seventeen district municipalities are taken together, the shelter should now be housing many thousands of animals. Instead, they believe only around one thousand dogs remain there.

If those estimates are anywhere close to being accurate, then the public deserves an explanation.

Every dog collected should be traceable from the moment it leaves the street until the end of its life. There should be records showing when it entered the shelter, where it was housed, what veterinary treatment it received and what ultimately happened to it. If it was transferred, there should be documentation showing where it went. If it was reclaimed, there should be evidence of that. If it died, there should be veterinary records explaining why. This is not an unreasonable expectation. It is the minimum standard of accountability that should exist whenever public authorities assume responsibility for thousands of living animals.

Instead, what we continue to see across Türkiye is an overwhelming focus on collection statistics while remarkably little is said about outcomes. Municipalities proudly announce how many dogs have been removed, yet the public is rarely told how many remain alive in their care, how many have died, how many have been transferred or where those animals are today.

That lack of transparency inevitably creates suspicion, and it is not confined to Aydın. We hear the same concerns repeatedly from different provinces. Community dogs disappear overnight. Local people search shelters without finding the animals they have cared for, sometimes for years. The official collection figures continue to rise, but the visible shelter populations do not always appear to reflect those numbers.

The allegations made in Aydın deserve a thorough and independent investigation, and they should be tested against the evidence. If they are unfounded, that should be demonstrated openly. If they are substantiated, those responsible must be held to account. In either case, the solution is exactly the same, complete transparency.

Until municipalities can account for every dog they have removed from the streets, the question will continue to grow louder.

The streets are becoming emptier, the shelters are not becoming fuller.

So where have the dogs gone?