“Empathy” is covered with paw print signs, just as Murat Ilgar’s jeep towing it. The trailer is a "pet project" for animal lover Ilgar, who filled the trailer with cat and dog food. He set out from his hometown Kocaeli in northwestern Turkey recently and his first stopover was neighboring Sakarya. Along the route, he contacts local philanthropists, collecting their donations in the form of animal food.

Ilgar’s next destination was Turkey’s eastern regions. In a few weeks, he traveled across Ağrı, Iğdır and Erzurum provinces, delivering food to the animals and his last stopover on Friday was Kars. He contacted local animal rights associations and enlisted the aid of volunteers there for delivery of food to stray animals both in central Kars and its Susuz district. From Kars, he will head to the Black Sea region in the north, for stray animals in Artvin, Rize and Trabzon.

“Animals on the streets await help from us and we should heed their plea,” he told Anadolu Agency (AA). “For me, this is a journey not only to feed the animals but to meet people who devoted their lives to animals and finding ways to cooperate for animal welfare. Here in Susuz, for instance, I came across many projects for care of animals and it made me happy,” he said. But what really makes him happy is seeing the “eyes of cats and dogs after delivering food to them.”

“You can feel their love toward you and it makes you glad you did this task,” he said.