What is your pet?
A dog. Don’t know the breed, a mix i guess.

What is their name?
Boncuk (pronounced ‘bon-jook’) It means ‘bead’ in Turkish. I’m not entirely sure why, but apparently it’s a very common name for dogs, cats, budgies.. etc here in Turkey, I assume because of the ‘beady’ eyes? Who knows (:

How old are they?
Not sure when her actual birthday is, but we think she was born sometime at the end of September 2012. We’ve had her since 4th November 2012 and the vet estimated she was 6 weeks old then.

Where did you get them?
Long story. We came home from the market one day and heard a yelping crying downstairs. We looked over the edge of the balcony and saw a tiny pup tied up. We went down to investigate and assumed our landlord had gotten a dog, although she had been left with no food, water and was tied to the balcony railing by a piece of rope around her leg which was cutting off the circulation. It turned out she wasn’t the landlords, he had no idea where she’d come from. He later remembered he had said in a random conversation with a passer by that he wanted a dog to guard his sheep, but nothing more was ever said. We assume the passer by came back with this puppy a few weeks later, but why they didn’t tell anyone and left her with no food or water I have no idea, or perhaps she was just dumped there by someone else. We untied the rope and gave her some water and cuddles, she was shaky and terrified, poor thing. The landlord didn’t want her, but since we fell in love with her, he said we could keep her, as long as she was kept outside. So that’s what we did-built her a home out of old slates, bricks and plastic, and tied her up using a lead I had for my rabbit (don’t ask haha).

She still lives outside now, but she doesn’t mind at all. Berkay has built her a nicer home and we play with and walk her everyday. Having dogs living outside is a bit of a controversial thing I think, but she’s a happy woofer and doesn’t mind at all. (: She always greets us with a waggy tail and only barks if she hears or see’s someone/something unusual.

Here’s some photos from the first few weeks we had her, I can’t believe she was so small.
   
Do they know any tricks?
Not really tricks, but she knows the standard ‘sit’, ‘lay’ and ‘give paw’. She also knows ‘get your ball’. We’re trying to teach her to ‘wait’ but she’s not quite mastered that yet, too excitable! She only knows English too, despite being Turkish!

Do they snuggle, give kisses, follow you around?
Since she’s not allowed indoors, no she doesn’t follow us around, but she does walk well off the lead. She does love to give kisses yes, it’s made for some quite funny photo attempts.

What are some of the funny things they do to make you laugh?
We walk her at the top of a hill with some old ruins, we often sit on the fallen bricks while she’s running around and she’s started to do a new, funny thing where she’ll get her ball, come running up behind us sitting on the brick wall and jump on our laps for snuggles, ball still in mouth! She makes me smile all the time. It’s also hilarious when she’s just so eager to get the treats that as soon as she sees our hand in the treat bag, instead of waiting for us to say ‘sit’,’lay’ or ‘give paw’, she does all three before the treat has even left the bag, in the hope she’s done something right and won’t have to wait!

She loves eating ice lollies too, not the healthiest thing, but they do a good job of cooling her down.

Berkay is her bestest friend in the world ❤