Survivor of Turkiye devastating quake, Bufy the dog finds a new family

Bufy, a Golden Retriever, found trapped in the ruins of a bakery after Turkiye’s devastating earthquake, is settling into life with a new family and recovering from his ordeal of a year ago, Reuters reports.

His new owner, Pinar Tamgucuk, said although she has never really been fond of animals, she wanted to adopt the dog as soon as she his paw reaching out from the rubble in her hometown of Hatay in southern Turkiye.

“They had shut the dog inside the bakery. Right away, when he reached out his paw to me, I wanted to take him at that moment,” Tamgucuk said.

“He cried a lot at night. He could not sleep. He was scared, frightened of everything. When there were small tremors, he would come next to us and let us know. He was very scared.”

The quake that struck in the early hours of 6 February last year levelled towns and parts of some cities in Turkiye’s southeast, killing more than 53,000 people in Turkiye and nearly 6,000 in neighbouring Syria.

At the Patiron grooming salon in Hatay, those working with traumatised pets said they had seen some of them become more aggressive or withdrawn since the earthquake.

“After a year, he got used to us. He doesn’t try to bite us now,” said Bufy’s groomer, Dilan Arslan. “But not everyone can be as lucky as Bufy.”

READ: Tent cities in quake-hit southern Turkiye become pet sanctuaries