Stray dogs are a pretty common sight in Greek streets. Although what's truly wild is the number of stray cats, especially in the suburbs!

In Istanbul, uniquely for a Muslim country, stray dogs are tolerated and are “regulated” by the city government. One day I saw a huge pack stampeding down the road en mass. Turks seemingly have a penchant for owning giant dogs, too.

Turks breed kagals. Hearding dogs big enough to keep bears and wolves away.

Those are scary big dogs.

I thought this was universal (in Greece) until I moved in the city center of Athens. I now only see stray dogs as an exception, e.g. in tourist-heavy, central places. I genuinely have no idea if it's the state's responsibility.

Cats of course, are still everywhere.

The stray dogs pretty much run Volos, which is the least touristy Greek city I know of.

City hall feeds them and somebody even grooms them.

> what's truly wild is the number of stray cats, especially in the suburbs!

The smell of a cat colony has to be smelt to be believed. It’s up there with the worst smells I’ve experienced.

That's an interesting triple entendre sentence build around "smelt", which is a past tense (archaic maybe?) of smell, often written smelled, and a smelt is a little silver fish, so quite stinky, and smelt is liquid metal.

That's a rare sentence that pretty much works all three ways.

Yikes. It was 3am and I was sleepless. Smelt rather than smelled… poor.

In Brooklyn a couple of decades ago (1990s/2000s), I saw a very large pack of dogs roaming one of its business districts (I cannot remember where…)

It was 3:00 AM so there was no human activity, and seeing 20+ dogs 5 to 6 blocks running around even while in a car was unnerving.

around that time I was chased out of the gownus area while looking at buildings by stray dogs. I lived next to the Wiliiamsburg bridge and there were strays in that neighborhood. I think they liked the industrial area lots space not many people.

Central and South America had a ton of stray dogs when I was there, and I hear they are very common in India too - they are probably common in much of the developing world. Like you, I don't recall seeing many of them in Europe at all. Lots of stray cats in Turkey and Greece, as I recall.

On the other hand we have a ton of foxes in and around London. Gorgeous creatures but quite a nuisance at times, like when they get into bins or making ungodly* noises at all all hours of the night.

* I originally misspelled this "undogly", which also works, I guess.

Now here is a person who can answer that timeless koan: "What does the fox say?"