Pregnancy Payouts: The Cruel Bounty on Stray Dogs
There are moments when words fail. The latest revelations from the Osmaniye municipal animal shelter in Turkey are among them.
According to leaked staff messages, shelter workers were being paid a bounty not only for every stray dog they captured, but even more chillingly for pregnant dogs and their unborn puppies.
“If you see a pregnant one, note her babies too.”
These words, casually exchanged between staff members, turn innocent lives into accounting units. A mother dog, swollen with life, is not seen as a creature in need of care, protection, or compassion but as a source of profit. Her unborn puppies are tallied up like currency.
Commodifying Life Before It Begins
The very idea that there was a monetary reward for capturing pregnant dogs exposes the depths of cruelty within this system. To put a price on a dog’s womb, to calculate unborn lives in terms of profit, is to deny their right to exist as living beings.
It is an unspeakable betrayal of trust. These are animals who cannot defend themselves, who rely entirely on human decency and instead, they are hunted, counted, and cashed in.
Jokes About Killing
As if this were not horrifying enough, staff also joked about “mincing” the animals reducing their existence to meat, mocking their suffering. This kind of casual cruelty reveals a culture where empathy has been stripped away, replaced by greed and callousness.
Adoption Blocked, Death Delivered
One citizen even tried to adopt a dog to save it from this nightmare. They were discouraged by staff. That same dog later died of suffocation from a capture device. In this system, compassion is shut out, while cruelty is rewarded.
Not an Accident — A System
This is not simply a case of a few bad actors. It is a system. A system that incentivises cruelty, that profits from suffering, that turns pregnancy into a payday. When money changes hands for unborn lives, what hope is left for mercy?
We Cannot Stay Silent
To place a bounty on unborn puppies is to commit cruelty before life even begins. It is an unforgivable stain on our shared humanity.
We cannot let this scandal fade into another forgotten headline. The dogs of Osmaniye — and every dog trapped in a shelter system that rewards cruelty deserve justice, safety, and dignity.
👉 Sign our petition today and help us demand independent investigations, prosecutions, and reform of Turkeys shelter system.
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Together, we can turn outrage into change.