In memory
We have not forgotten them
Their stories are still with us.
Güçlü
08/02/2026 ♾️Güçlü was adopted. She spent her last three years in a warm, happy home and was walked every day.
Güçlü came to campus as a puppy. She came through a great deal, and her treatment meant long stays at the vet and in foster homes. Her friends on campus looked after her. Güçlü was very timid at first, but she grew used to people. One of the graduating students adopted her. Güçlü spent her last three years in a warm, happy home, went for a walk every day, and made friends with many cats and dogs. She came to the end of her life peacefully, among the friends who loved her.
Diken
12/12/2025 ♾️Diken is one of the friends we miss dearly.
Itır
18/11/2025 ♾️The campus’s white girl. In the snow in winter, in the leaves in autumn, under a graduation stole on somebody’s big day: all of it is here.
Cino
01/10/2025 ♾️For ten years, our "little duckling". "We are still here."
Hello. I am Cino. I am writing to you from beside Mathilda, my sister. Diken, Şanslı, Efe, Zorbik, Maskeli… they all send their love.
They miss Beytepe terribly: saying good morning to you, waiting for feeding time, sleeping on the grass, the library steps. That is where they always hung about; you were more likely to find me over towards Parlar. I used to spend my time with the Athena lot, then I moved to other parts of the campus. After they left… so much changed at Beytepe lately that we stopped seeing each other at all.
I got a little old in all that. My joints started hurting and walking slowly became hard. I did not even want to get up for my food. Medicines, supplements, Haydok feeding me by hand — none of it moved me away from the end I was coming up to fast. My body was tired.
To my brother Eren, who looked after me and cared for me in my last days, and to Haydok: thank you, for wrapping me in cotton wool and for loving me so very much as their "little duckling". For being my family for ten years, since I was a baby.
And there is Deniz. I know I was very special to her. She was to me too; she used to put flowers on my head and take my picture. She would stay beside me for hours and pet me, and we would talk. She would say Cino and nothing else.
They tell me I helped her get over her fear of dogs, that I was the reason. How glad I am, because through that my other friends got to meet somebody as wonderful as her. She touched all of their hearts, and so did Haydok.
We were born here, we grew up here, we breathed here; the woods were ours, and this is where we waited, tails going, to see you. I say "here" because we are still here.
I know you remember us, that even when we are not with you, you say "Cino and I sat over there", "Patik and I used to say hello here", "Beyaz came up to me for the first time just there".
We all go, one by one, when our time comes. But you have more to do with the ones who are left, and they need you very much. Love them. Love them a great deal.
Şanslı
2025 ♾️We miss you so much, our warrior girl Şanslı.
Well, friends, the time has come…
I say friends and I mean it: everyone reading this letter was my friend. Sometimes right beside me, sometimes from far away without ever meeting me, you loved me, you prayed for me, you were my friends.
Eight years… A whole eight years I lived in Beytepe. I was not born here, but the place where I was happy was my home, and even though we can no longer look into each other’s eyes, even though you will not see my smiling photographs around here any more, I know you will not forget me. Perhaps your eyes will look for me on the grass; perhaps every time someone says “Şanslı” your eyes will fill and there will be an ache in your heart — but I am in an endless, peaceful sleep now.
Some things in life do not let go of you. When I first came to this campus I had cancer, and I got better with love and care. I arrived in a wretched state and in pain; it seems I had babies, but I do not know where I left them. Treatments, good people, good food, friends who looked like me… nothing was left of the day I first set foot here. At one point I got as round as a table from all the eating, and Haydok even banned ice cream for me… but sometimes, whatever you do, illness does not let go. I was named Şanslı — Lucky — for that very reason, but this is as far as it goes.
I had wonderful days among you, I was so loved… I was in all the Haydok posters and so on; I was so beautiful that I had become something of a brand face.
I have so very much to write, but what is the use? They give me so much medicine to quiet the pain that I am terribly sleepy. So sleepy and so tired… The Haydok people were beside me, they loved me and talked to me, but I could not answer much; I did not have it in me. In these last days I stopped eating too. I gave in. They had come to say goodbye, really.
For eight years I learned Beytepe inch by inch; it was my home. I leave many friends behind, and all of them are wonderful children.
I leave you trees whose shade I will not be in, grass I will not lie on with you. I leave you my friends, who love you dearly, who watch for you, for whom you are a source of happiness…
Do not forget me; my smiling face, my fighting spirit…
Zorba
26/06/2025 ♾️We miss you so much, Zorba. Rest in peace.
I was found on the campus one day in November 2017. I really was as small as a person’s hand and knew nothing of the world. I went from lap to lap, over the moon. I must have got used to it back then, because even when I was the size of a calf I still loved sitting on a lap.
At one point it looked as if I had found a home, but it did not work out, and Haydok took me back under their wing. Eight years — where did they go?
In those eight years I was loved so much, so very much. Like all my friends, people looked me in the eye. Did you never see the lipstick marks on my face, or me sitting in someone’s lap like a baby, or refusing to get out of a car? They say some creatures have the devil’s own charm; that was me.
I was a good dog. I cannot believe any of my dog friends is a bad one — but some can be quicker to anger, and in the end that is why I am no longer with you. Bless them all the same. It is our nature; sometimes you lose to the balance of it.
Haydok is very tired, you know. Every time one of us goes, it opens a wound in all of their hearts. We are the children they found when we were the size of a hand and wrapped in cotton wool, the ones they kept alive for years with more than anyone should have to give — and we are going one by one.
For all the difficulties they meet, all the obstruction, all the breath that smells of death, I know they will never give up on us.
My life turned out to be eight years, and I lived those eight years on this campus so well: I was always a good friend and a good listener, and wild as I was, I knew how to sit quietly when the moment called for it. Friendship mattered to me — protecting my friends, leaving nobody out.
One of the Haydok people said of me: "Zorba became close friends with a dog no other dog would speak to. He did not leave him out."
Patik
22/03/2025 ♾️Patik is one of the friends we miss dearly.
Mathilda
27/02/2025 ♾️Mathilda is one of the friends we miss dearly.
Beyaz
04/10/2024 ♾️We have never forgotten you, Beyaz. Rest in peace.
Hello, I am Beyaz…
I think you understand why I am writing this letter to you. Perhaps we never met, never sat on the grass together, perhaps many of you never even got to touch me — but somehow our eyes met.
I am Maskeli’s closest friend. Maskeli and Beyaz — we were never apart; we even came to the campus together. For years we lived here, getting on well with our other friends. We did not come very close to you, but you loved us and we loved you.
In four days it will be a month since Maskeli left me. I had been on my own since he went; I did not know what had happened to him, but I think I know now. One day I too was going to leave these grounds, and now I have shared the same fate as my dearest friend. We sleep side by side now.
For years we stood shoulder to shoulder, we grew up together and grew old together. Now I am beside him. Şanslı is here too; Sezai, Çavuş, Kedikız, Katmer, Efe, Uysal… We are all together. It is nicer here, do not be sad.
Today is 4 October, our day. For the sake of this day I want a promise from you: do not give up fighting for us, all right? That is all I ask, for all the friends I have left behind. I never felt unwanted; I was always happy and at peace in Beytepe — but the fight is not over for our friends there. They are in your care now.
Farewell…
Beyaz of Beytepe
Maskeli
08/09/2024 ♾️Maskeli is one of the friends we miss dearly.
Lotus
21/06/2024 ♾️Lotus is one of the friends we miss dearly.
Efe
25/01/2024 ♾️Efe is one of the friends we miss dearly.
Çavuş
05/01/2024 ♾️Çavuş is one of the friends we miss dearly.
Görümce
12/05/2023 ♾️Görümce is one of the friends we miss dearly.
Eyşan
03/03/2023 ♾️We are glad you were with us, and glad you taught us what love means.
Hello. For those who do not know me, I am Eyşan of Beytepe. This is my last hello to you.
Perhaps many of you know me from the adverts looking for a home for me; perhaps some of you knew my honest smile and my good heart.
The good part of my life began the day I was abandoned at the campus gate. What came before was not much of a life, but the moment I set foot in Beytepe you made me forget those bad days. You were with me in every moment.
Every one of my days was spent laughing, licking faces, making myself loved, sleeping in the laps of people and friends. I have left you the way we waited for your footsteps at feeding time, and the days we ran together in the woods. I have left you my photographs too — dozens, perhaps hundreds of them, so there is something to remember. Keep my collar as well.
I know you have not forgotten a single friend who left this place, and I am sure you will not forget me either.
For five years Beytepe campus was my home, and I had a wonderful time there with my human friends. I loved them very much and I was always very loved.
Yesterday morning I closed my eyes into my endless sleep; it turns out my stomach had twisted.
Above all I thank my friends at HAYDOK, my vets, everyone who loved me, everyone who supported me, everyone who had a part in making my life a happy one, and every human and animal friend who touched my life in any way. I cannot be with you any more; please do not be too sad, because seeing you like that would make me sad too. Remember me always with my enormous love and my smile.
I have gone now, but my friends are still with you. Please look after them; all of my friends are in your care.
Eyşan of Beytepe 🤍
Jülide
23/04/2021 ♾️Jülide is one of the friends we miss dearly.
Kara
13/03/2021 ♾️Kara is one of the friends we miss dearly.
Athena
09/03/2021 ♾️Athena is one of the friends we miss dearly.
Azula
04/11/2018 ♾️Azula is one of the friends we miss dearly.
Atkılı
14/03/2018 ♾️Atkılı is one of the friends we miss dearly.
Sezai
22/12/2017 ♾️We have never forgotten you, Sezai. Rest in peace.
Su
31/05/2016 ♾️Su is one of the friends we miss dearly.
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Uju
04/09/2024 ♾️Uju is one of the friends we miss dearly.