Our darling Butterfinger. She is the best dog ever. Seriously.
We can walk her at 5 pm on Friday and not walk her until 2 pm Saturday. That’s right, our ten year old terrier lets us slept in, make and eat brunch, read the paper THEN walk her. Well, we always kept up on her medical care, but sometimes it was really difficult, vaccinations and vets are very expensive. Especially when the vet said she had to have her teeth cleaned. In the U.S. to have her anesthetized, antibiotics and her teeth cleaned was about $400. Yikes!
Well things became a lot simpler, AND CHEAPER, when we moved to Turkey. One thing is that she now has a carne (a book) of shots. Every time she has a vaccination, which seems more frequent, they put the sticker from the medicinal vial in her book, which makes it very simple to see what vaccines she has received, even if we switched vets. She has a lot of vaccinations here, but I think there may be more fungal vaccinations here that aren’t in the States, but the shots are rarely more than 20 Liras($15).
There is also the customer service. A while back Butterfinger was bitten by another dog (bitch!—no really!) in the park. We went, they shaved her hair around the bites and cleaned her wounds—all for no charge. I can take her in any time to get her nails trimmed—no charge.
Well, at our last vaccination appointment the vet told us we should get her teeth cleaned again, she was starting to get gingivitis. So we said ok, how much will it cost… He said, “Well, about 100 lira, plus anesthetic, and after she might need antibiotics…so maybe 150 liras–worst case.” ($75-100) Sounds good to us, since the last time we blew half a month of rent on her teeth! Clearly we want the best for her, but sometimes when it is really expensive it is difficult. We don’t have children yet, for a reason. We are not ready. But we do have Butterfinger, and she is our responsibility. We would always provide the medical treatments she needs but we are glad it is easier, and less expensive, to give her the top treatments here.
Far From The Sticks 
Finally another post.
Re Butterfinger…too adorable.
Hello! I’m getting ready to move to Ankara and have no idea about living there, let alone with a small elderly pug dog. Where would you suggest living? My husband will work at the Ministry of Health in the center and we don’t want to own a car or commute from afar. Also, can you walk your dog in the park even though there are a lot of stray dogs? Does your vet speak English? If so, can you give me his name and address? I feel for you on the dental cleaning. We just did Raoul’s in Switzerland and it was about 450 dollars. I would love any information you could send me.
Donna