"ANIMAL HOARDING"
Taken from:
Detailed information was obtained on 54 cases. An animal hoarder was defined as "someone who accumulates a large number of animals; fails to provide minimal standards of nutrition, sanitation and veterinary care; and fails to act on the deteriorating condition of the animals (including disease, starvation and even death) or the environment (severely overcrowded and unsanitary conditions), or the negative impact of the collection on their own health and well-being."
1. FROM PERSONAL EXPERIENCE:
I first became aware of "animal hoarding" in the late 1990's, my first few years out of veterinary school (My Story). Back then, these people were called "collectors" but the term was changed to "hoarding". A lot of people are collectors of all sorts of things, but there is a huge difference between a collector and a hoarder whether they collect living creatures, or inanimate objects. Hoarders are believed to suffer from mental illness. (will go into more detail soon)
I was working for Dr. Weber, a champion to so many (see My Story) who have opened their hearts and homes to the abandoned, the stray, the neglected....
One day, a woman brought two shih-tzu to the clinic. One gold and white, the other black and white. One eye on each dog had been popped completely out of its socket, dangling by the disgustingly infected remains of muscle and connective tissue as if in some Halloween horror story. Clearly, not a recent event for either one. All that know me know my special love for this breed, especially the black and white).
And this is why: my first "son" and my first shih tzu,
Brittsy
The black and white fellow, "Gizmo", (left) had already lost his other eye, I would guess from an untreated injury causing the eyeball to collapse over time; there was no indication that this eye had been attended to by a veterinarian.
They both were covered in fleas, what hair they had was matted all over, and filthy. From what Dr. Weber told me, the owner had been bringing dogs to him for years, very sporatically and inconsistently, not for routine health care, but because of some sort of "emergency" situation, like these two. He knew she had more than a housefull of dogs and he had been trying for a long time to get someone to do something about it. I just happened to say the right thing to the right person and before I knew it, the house was descended upon by proper authority; all the dogs were taken to Birmingham Jefferson County Animal Control, and the woman was arrested on animal cruelty charges.
I was called over there to examine the dogs, determine if any were in such bad shape that they needed to be euthanized right away. I had never been to the dog pound before. It was an eerie experience. It seemed an expansive facility, and as I was taken to see the dogs, I felt lost in the vastness (as it seemed to me). It was unnaturally quiet, seemingly lifeless, so different from the noisy clamoring of barking dogs that greeted me daily when I worked there.
Mr. Smith took me to the kennel that housed the dogs. There were small dogs in every run, several to a run, laying asleep on the hard floor. About a third were shih tzus, , a large number of chihuahuas, then a small group of varied breeds, mixed breeds (these dogs were up and about, barking, and looked very healthy. It was suspected that this woman went around neighborhoods picking up loose dogs and taking them to her home).
Most of the dogs were laying down, apparently sleeping. Some were huddled in the back of the run, trembling. Most were thin, suffering from an abundance of fleas, many had scabies (a contagious and very itchy skin mite). Hair coats were thin, the hair was matted and filthy. Although these dogs were in very poor condition, I did not see one animal, with the limited exam that I was able to perform at the site, that appeared to be suffering to the extent of requiring euthanasia to end its suffering. (more to come)
