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Posted on Mon, Sep. 20, 2004
Caring too much
Experts call them "animal hoarders," people who keep more pets than
they can manage. Helping the pet owner - and the pet - is no simple
task.
By Bonnie L. Cook
Inquirer Staff Writer
In South Philadelphia, housing officials remove 17 dogs from a house
filled with feces. The stench is so revolting that workers wearing
respirators immediately seal the place, and officals cite the owner
for code violations.
In Swedesboro, Gloucester County, a renter leaves behind 14 sick
cats, along with a note telling the SPCA to take them. Four other
cats aren't going anywhere - they're dead.
In Voorhees, Camden County, animal-control officers charge a man with
cruelty after removing 50 mixed-breed beagles from his trash-filled
home. Seven are paw-deep in their own waste in an outside pen.
These owners have long been seen as neighborhood eccentrics. But a
growing number of veterinary and mental health professionals now use
the term "animal hoarding" and are studying whether the behavior
indicates untreated mental illness.
The first scientific study of this behavior took place in 1981 in New
York City. Since then, it's been examined by a consortium of
Massachusetts researchers, including veterinarians, psychologists and
social workers.
The group believes that hoarders may suffer from a spectrum of
psychological disorders, including dementia.
Researchers are in the midst of developing a comprehensive profile.
The more secretive and socially isolated people are, the more likely
they are to be hoarders. Another factor is how actively they seek out
new pets and how adequately they care for the pets they have.
"Some may exhibit a mental illness. Others, like the overwhelmed
caregiver, may have some problems, but they're not mentally ill,"
said Gail Steketee, a Boston University social-work professor and
member of the Hoarding of Animals Consortium.
Researchers are moving ahead to develop a treatment protocol,
Steketee said. None currently exists.
Although no one really knows how many hoarders there are, as many as
3,000 new cases crop up nationwide each year, said Randall Lockwood,
vice president for research at the Humane Society of the United
States. Hoarders fit a pattern - often a solitary woman over 60 for
whom pets, more often cats than dogs, become a source of comfort and
unconditional love.
"It's not about the animals at all, it's about fulfilling a human
need," said Gary J. Patronek, a founding member of the consortium and
an assistant professor at Tufts University School of Veterinary
Medicine, in Massachusetts.
Animal hoarders generally start out as Good Samaritans who take in
unwanted pets, the consortium says. Many are in the helping
professions, such as nursing, and lead otherwise normal lives.
But as their homes fill with animals, pet care suffers. The homes
evolve into run-down shelters lined with cages. Dogs go unwalked, cat
litter boxes untended. Living conditions become squalid and unhealthy.
Many places lack plumbing and electricity. And some people supplement
their hoarding by collecting inanimate objects, such as discarded
containers, newspapers and guns.
As the behavior progresses, hoarders retreat into secrecy, keeping
visitors away. But the odor of animal waste seeping through walls
betrays them, spurring complaints and investigations by humane
officers and code enforcers.
Experts aren't sure what prompts a person to start hoarding. They do
think that many hoarders form a parallel society of animals, much
like a family. "This fills a huge hole in their lives," Patronek said.
Hoarding is resistant to intervention; the relapse rate is near 100
percent, Steketee said. Hoarders typically move rather than stop
collecting pets.
The mental-health community doesn't view animal hoarding as a
discrete disorder, because it has so many elements and possible
causes, said Jerrold Pollak, a Portsmouth, N.H., psychologist
specializing in obsessive-compulsive behavior.
The behavior may point to a personality disorder, a dementia
involving the brain's front temporal lobes, or obsessive-compulsive
disorder (OCD), he said.
Stephanie LaFarge, a clinical psychologist who directs counseling at
the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals in New
York, believes the mental-health community has been negligent in not
recognizing animal hoarding as a problem that needs clinical
attention.
"Mental health turns a blind eye because these people usually aren't
a danger to themselves or others," LaFarge said. "They give these
folks a pass."
But law enforcement doesn't. Although there is no law against
hoarding, Pennsylvania pet owners who don't provide adequate food,
shelter and sanitary conditions may be charged with a summary
offense. Usually, they pay a fine and forfeit the animals.
Municipalities may set the number of animals a person may keep. In
Philadelphia, residents may have a maximum of 12 pets per household.
In the suburban counties and New Jersey, the standard varies, and
most municipalities have no limit. Others allow four to six pets.
It's common for people collecting large numbers of animals to be
cited for failing to take care of them.
On July 24, when rescuers removed 50 mixed-breed beagles from a home
in Voorhees, animal-control officers from the Society for the
Prevention of Cruelty to Animals charged the man with 18 counts of
failing to provide shelter and two counts of failing to provide
veterinary care.
On Wednesday, the man was barred by a court from owning animals in
New Jersey.
In September 2002, humane officers removed 112 animals, most of them
cats, from a Hatfield, Montgomery County, home, court records
indicate.
Some died of disease or were euthanized at the Montgomery County
SPCA, court records say. But 75 cats remain at the county's three
shelters, as their owner appeals a court conviction on 105 counts of
animal cruelty.
On Nov. 14, 2003, Montgomery County Common Pleas Court Judge Albert
R. Subers ordered the owner to forfeit the pets and pay $45,600
toward the $124,806 cost of their upkeep at the SPCA.
Once a hoarding case is adjudicated, humane shelters usually reach
out to private rescue groups to place the animals, said Carmen J.
Ronio, executive director of the Montgomery County SPCA.
Steketee thinks it will take a combined effort from police, SPCA
agents, social workers and veterinarians to stop animal hoarding in
the future.
"There's a strong need for a coordinated management of the situation
within communities because, as you can see, it's not a simple
problem," Steketee said.
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Contact staff writer Bonnie L. Cook at 610-313-8232 or
bcook@phillynews.com.
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