Longstanding Animal Welfare Group Blocked From Didim Shelter Turkiye After Raising Questions About Collected Dogs

A longstanding animal welfare organisation that has worked alongside Didim Municipality’s animal shelter for years says two of its founders have now been banned from entering the facility, as concerns continue to grow over what is happening to dogs being removed from the town’s streets.

Care of Didim Animals, known as CoDA, confirmed publicly on 12 July that Roy and Lynn had been banned from entering the shelter. The organisation told supporters that the decision would not stop its work for the animals and that it would continue to be their eyes. (Facebook)

That loss of access is significant because CoDA has not historically been an outside organisation campaigning against the shelter. Its founders, Roy and Lyn Dulledge, have been involved in animal welfare in Didim for many years, while CoDA volunteers have worked closely with the municipal facility and the animals housed there. Roy and Lyn were already being publicly identified as CoDA’s founders in local reporting in 2023.

The relationship appears to have changed dramatically as Türkiye’s drive to remove free roaming dogs from the streets has gathered pace.

On 1 July, CoDA published what it described as an unofficial update about developments at Didim Animal Shelter, making clear that information was becoming difficult to establish. Since then, the organisation has publicly raised concerns about individual animals it says cannot be accounted for.

In one particularly troubling post, CoDA said four free-roaming dogs were missing from Didim Animal Shelter, adding that two of them had only three legs following road traffic accidents and amputations.

Then came the statement shared by our dear friend İbrahim Kaya.

In that statement, Roy and Lynn describe years of involvement with the shelter and say the relationship deteriorated after dogs began being collected from the streets following the changes to Türkiye’s animal protection law. They claim dogs were arriving at the shelter but were not subsequently being seen again, and that questions about their whereabouts were not being answered.

When people who have spent years working alongside a municipal shelter begin asking where dogs have gone, preventing those same people from entering the facility does nothing to answer those questions.

It instead creates another one: why were Roy and Lynn banned?

This is also not happening in isolation. Didim has become the focus of increasing concern as dogs are removed from its streets. Dog Desk Animal Action recently documented deeply distressing footage showing a terrified dog screaming while being dragged from beneath a car by one leg during a collection operation before being thrown upside down into a net. A person who attempted to intervene was subsequently reported as a suspect accused of resisting an official.

Didim Municipality can address much of the growing concern by explaining why Roy and Lynn are no longer permitted to enter the shelter and by publishing clear records showing what is happening to the dogs being collected.

How many dogs have entered the facility? How many are currently there? How many have left, and under what circumstances? Where animals have been transferred, released, adopted, died or been euthanised, there should be a traceable record of those outcomes. These are not unreasonable questions when animals are being removed from public view and placed into municipal custody.

CoDA’s public statement confirming that Roy and Lynn have been banned makes this more than speculation about access. People who previously worked alongside the shelter are now on the outside of its gates at the very time they are asking what has happened to dogs they expected to find inside.

Didim Municipality should explain why. And until it does, blocking access is unlikely to quiet the questions being asked about the shelter. It is only likely to make them louder.

CoDA’s 12 July statement confirming Roy and Lynn were banned from the shelter