"The animals have no voice but ours..."

Help the Hoarder

March 21, 2008
Jennifer Vanderau
 

Over the past few days, I’ve been seeing a lot of articles about shelter and humane society officials going into homes and rescue organizations where the number of pets had become beyond overwhelming.

Nearly 800 small breed dogs like Chihuahuas and terriers were found living with elderly owners in a triple-wide mobile home in rural Arizona.

A little closer to us, just outside of Pittsburgh, almost 700 cats were taken from an animal sanctuary, while it was speculated that hundreds and possibly thousands were buried around the property.

In Arizona, officials found feces, urine and horrible conditions all over the house – including the kitchen, but miraculously enough, the dogs were in relatively decent shape.

Near Pittsburgh, though, many of the cats were ill, seriously dehydrated and dying as they were taken from the property.

I’m getting worried that animal hoarding – more animals in a home or on a property than can be adequately cared for – is quickly becoming a nationwide epidemic and something really needs to be done.

Even though I have seven cats and have had late night run-ins with hairballs coughed up around undigested food, I have to say I can’t imagine having 700 in the house – or 800 terriers in a mobile home. Just from a logistical standpoint, how would you even walk through the place?

There really is a line between having a house full of pets and being a hoarder. The more I learn about the issue, the more I think the problem lies in the mentality of the people in question.

While there are animal-lovers right now reading these words who turn on radios and televisions for their furry babies before they leave the house and deal with a number of housetraining issues, those are the same people who have the mental capacity to absolutely draw the line at not being able to walk through their home because there are too many animals.

I mean, in some homes of animal hoarders, officials found feces everywhere, including the kitchen. I love my babies a whole lot, but the thought of trying to dig out a plate on which I’m going to eat my dinner while attempting to avoid the feces on the counter goes far beyond the idea of too much.

So you see there is a line and most people are capable of not only seeing it, but making sure they never cross it.

Because of that, animal hoarding really can be associated with a psychosis and mental disease. I know a lot of animal welfare advocates see hoarders as “evil” and believe they should be punished by the same starvation and dehydration they forced on their pets. There are very heated emotions in the animal welfare world in general, but a lot of fiery feelings arise when the subject of hoarding appears.

Sadly, I believe that until the animal hoarders found guilty of keeping pets in unsanitary conditions can receive the mental help they need, I fear the problem will continue.

It’s called recidivism and anyone associated with the criminal justice system knows what I’m talking about. The idea of incarceration is to reduce recidivism, or the act of repeating an undesirable behavior once someone has experienced negative consequences because of said behavior. Basically, we’re looking to have people come out of jail not wanting to do again what they did to get them there in the first place.

I think the same consideration should be given for animal hoarders. In order to end the cycle of hundreds of animals living in unacceptable conditions, we have to get to the root of the problem and that often rests in the mind of the hoarder. In addition, I also wish the officials and lawmakers could step in to ensure that hoarders are not allowed any more pets than say one or two ever again. As often happens, once the houses and properties are cleared, in a hoarder’s mind, they see the empty spaces as more room for more animals and the cycle continues.

Sometimes as I read story after story of people who are living with way more animals than even the most avid animal-lover would deem acceptable, I wonder when it’s really going to stop. We need more stringent laws for hoarders and constant supervision by professionals to ensure the cycle doesn't continue.

In addition, we need to realize that in order to decrease the incidents of animal hoarding, we have to treat the condition itself and that often requires serious psychological help.

I fear until we can do that, until we help the people, we’ll never see an end to the stories of our four-legged friends forced to exist in filth, squalor and decay. 

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