Why? Why do people hoard animals?

[pica_nuttalli]

http/news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=...cat_infestation

i'm seriously asking: why do people do this? have they ever come up with a psychological explanation for animal hoarding?

stories like this one both baffle and disgust me. it just seems so insane for a person to think that she could keep a few hundred cats in a single house. this is just one of those things i don't get...

 

[Mr Miagi]

I reckon it must be psychological? How could she put up with 170 decomposing cats?

 

[FishEnthusiast]

I have heard of people having hundreds of live cats, but never dead ones. I hope she gets the help she needs.

 

[snowyangel]

Omg, thats horrible. It was probably awhole bunch of strays she thought she would be rescueing if she let them in. She also probably had brain damage of some sort or some mental illness, but thats just sad. Well hopefully the survivors will recoop. I wish i could be there to help them come back to full health. I feel so helpless but i guess that's why it feels good to get invovled with rescues in my area.

I remember when working for my rescue, we had to go pick up a cat from a house. This was another elderly lady with a house of about 12 cats(she said she was running a rescue but a rather digusting one). Her place smelt and had unneutered and unspayed cats running around. This cat we took out of her home was full of worms when we had her vet checked. After the treatment this female cat then suprised us with a litter of kittens! Simply digusting how this lady would even call her self a rescue but then a rescue has to come rescue her pets! And now this lady wants her cat back? Ya after the vet bills are paid and the cats in full health, ya right she can go kiss my....

 

[Auratus]

Probably the same reason we hoard bettas

 

[Bloo]

She most certainly has a grave mental illness - no doubt about that. (I'm not being sarcastic).

They had a program on TV a couple of months ago (from the Michigan Humane Society I think) about this lady that had a very similar situation. They caught literally hundreds of cats in her house. They were livining under the floor boards, in the loft / attic - just absolutely EVERYWHERE. From outside the house you couldn't even see in through the windows as it was just absolutely plastered with cat hair and cat faces pressed to the glass

Oh and not to speak of cat faeces & urine plastered everywhere

They had to put every single cat to sleep as they were all in dire condition and completely and utterly wild. But no where to go as they windows and doors were always locked so they just kept and kept breeding in the house. It took them days and weeks to capture all the cats in the rafters and between the pipes.

The lady was something like a manic depressive and obese and needed serious help - but obviously could not ask for it. I actually felt sorry for her too.

 

[cheekeyarab]

The Michigan humane society appear to encounter hoarders a lot as I have seen a lot of programmes similar to the ones bloozoo describes.

I think what is sad is that, although the conditions are awful, a lot of the time the hoarders take better care of the animals than themselves.

Obviously there is something seriously wrong. Nobody who is mentally healthy chooses to live in such disgusting conditions or keeps anywhere near the number of animals; alive or dead.

I respect the way the animal rescue bodies treat these cases entirely differently to cruelty and neglect cases. They always seek help for the owners as well as dealing with the animal situation and rarely press charges in cases like these.

 

[rdd1952]

My wife watches Animal Planet quite a bit and the Pet Police shows (or what ever they're called). I saw one the other day where they said most people like that had suffered a lose and started keeping the pets as companions to compensate for their lose. They said most often it was women. Once their pets start to multiply, because of their past lose, they can't bring themselves to part with the newborns so things start to snowball and lead to the terrible situations like the one mentioned.

 

[rarefish]

It's really sad ... Something had to be wrong with her.

rarefish

 

[Tokis-Phoenix]

It happens all the time and not just cats- only a couple of weeks ago on the news there was a couple who moved abroad leaving their 8horses, some with foals, 24 dogs, 50 cats and dozens of other animals to starve to death leaving a total of 150 dead animals in total- the only animals that survived were a couple of dogs who had managed to survive by eating the corpses of other dogs they were locked up with. It was said the dead horses had been decomposing for at least 3-4months.
The couple were caught and got a month in prison and a fine and a the right to ever own animals ever again taken away- i personally think that is way to lean a sentence considering a guy got done for prison for 10yrs for dog baiting.

My family had to experience a similar family of animal hoarders who rented out a small cottage and stables my mum owned some years ago. We new about what they did but we couldn't exvict them due to the court and police not giving a f**k for years and the fact they trained their 12 bulldogs to go for my mum and dad and anyone else who approached the cottage, that is if they could get around the barbed wire fencing piles they put up with.
They poached all our deer decimating a herd of 32 roe deer to 0 and killed our pheasants every year.
When we finally managed to get the police and baliffs to force them out, we discovered 24 dead and rotting sheep in their garden with only 2 live ones which had to be put down due to their terible starved state, we found 50 cats plus plenty dead ones, 6 parrots, loads of dogs, domesticated rats mice and guinea pigs- ther were so many dead animals i can't remember the numbers exactly. The place was falling to bits and took 2yrs to repair. The family was bad enough themsleves and were drug dealers, the mum had 8 kids including 2 daughters, one of which got pregnant from her brothers.; they terorised us for years and it only enforces my belief that the police are virtually useless.

 

[Angry_Platy]

This may be just me but I can cope better with humans being in pain than I can animals feeling pain There is a poster at the vet we go to with a picture of a sad-looking starved dog with a caption saying "Is it because I have no voice" then underneath another picture, with the same dog, healthy/refed/smiling and a caption saying "There is love in this world" (it is an ad for something but I can't remember what).

That is terrible Tokis.

 

[Angel Lady]

I feel sorry for the lady, That newsletter said she was 82 years of age. She probally thought she was helping the cats. She wasnt able to take care of herself. And didnt have the heart to take them to the shelter, I have seen a lot of this in elderly people. They letter said they had to put all the cats down. poor things.

 

[Isis_Nebthet]

When I was young (maybe about five) I visited an elderly lady who had tons of cats. Lots of the kittens died and she couldn't see to clean things up and I tried to help clean and feed them all. It started off as a few cats kind of thing. My mom hated it. One day her realatives sent her to a home I don't know what happened to all the poor cats.

At what point does someone become a hoarder though?

I've personally seen a little ol lady with 50 dogs a nice kennel complex, no poo, and all the dogs were fat and sassy, spayed or neutered, and utd on shots.


Of course animal control still shot all her dogs and sent her a bill for the bullets (this happens here when they can't get into your place with the dog trucks to gather the dogs). They don't have consideration if the dogs are cared for here. They want their kennel liscense money (would have probably been about 2000$/yr in her case).....

 

[GSD]

i think that at first theyre tryna help
like rescuing the odd stray etc but after a while it gets too much and they are scared to give them to a shelter.

 

[sylvia]

That's a sickening story. As for when a person becomes a hoarder - I'd say it's when they have too many to deal with and yet still insist and particularly when the person keeps the animals at their expense and refuses to admit that they cannot care for them. I myself had 27 cats at one point but I would not consider myself a hoarder as they were all very well cared for (all loved, healthy, neutered etc). It was more a temporary thing though (they were strays I was fostering to be rehomed) but I still kept the majority for over a year, some longer. I think a lot of people on this forum could be considered 'hoarders' - if you have an over-stocked tank, isn't that what you are? Keeping the fish in less-than adequate conditions for your own enjoyment but at their expense? Is that not the same on the basic level?