THOSE who criticise Turkey’s human-rights record can take some comfort from the fact that Turks seem to be treating animals better than they used to. Last week the story of a collie abandoned in the Aegean port of Izmir was splashed on the front page of a mass-circulation newspaper, Hurriyet. The dog apparently “went on hunger strike because of a broken heart.” Hundreds of readers rang up, offering to adopt the unhappy fellow. Dog-loving, it seems, is the latest fad.

On the face of things this is odd because, despite Turkey’s government-enforced secularity, Islam has long frowned on dog ownership. Orthodox Muslim teaching says that dogs are unhygienic: they must not be nearby when Muslims pray. But that is just one reason for many Turks’ recent dogginess: actively secular Turks like to show off their dogs partly to demonstrate how European they are.

Until recently, dogs were, at best, exotic. Some breeds were on show alongside tigers and giraffes in Ankara’s zoo. What changed the canine status was the Soviet Union’s collapse, and the ensuing influx of Russian suitcase-traders, whose wares included pedigree puppies going cheap. Well-bred spaniels, Dalmatians and Rottweilers started selling fast, for as little as $5 a pooch. Enterprising Turks began to trade in dogs, tripling the Russians’ prices but still offering furry bargains to middle-class Turks. Pet shops proliferated: there are now 40 or so in Ankara, the capital, alone, plus 60 dog clinics and three “dog hotels” in case owners have to go away.

The sales boom has given a boost to animal-rights groups, and politicians have also spotted the trend. New laws to make maltreatment of animals a crime are going through parliament. There was a burst of public debate this month when it emerged that fur trappers were using meat laced with arsenic to lure foxes to their doom.

The latest posters of Mesut Yilmaz, Turkey’s recently deposed prime minister, who hopes to get his job back after the election due in April, display him alongside not just his family but also his Great Dane, Daisy. A popular television programme has even shown Turkey’s would-be “first dog” going into labour and then basking with her new pups: vote-catchers, so Mr Yilmaz hopes, all seven of them.