Paw Prints the Magazine

GLASS MENAGERIE – The fragile difference between helping and hoarding animals

By Stacy E. Smith

We hear it on the news all too often, each news report often more difficult to believe than the last.

Case #1:  Police in Anytown, USA, found 67 dead kittens and cats in Jane Doe’s refrigerator. They also discovered that even more cats and a dog were running loose; litter boxes overflowed. Doe, a 50-year-old retired police officer, was charged with 92 misdemeanor counts of animal abandonment. Before the arrest, neighbors said, she would go around the neighborhood feeding all the animals she could find.

Case #2:  Police acting on neighbors’ tips swept four homes and confiscated 201 cats and dogs. In one house, 52 beagles were found without proper food and surrounded by feces. Near another home, 72 dogs and cats, plus chickens, waded in an open sewer line. The local newspaper reported that healthier animals found in the raids — around 90 — could go up for adoption. The rest, presumably, would have to be destroyed.

Animal hoarders have never met an animal they didn’t like, and place us (our society in general) in quite a predicament. We’ve seen photos of the squalor taken by the local media — pictures of soiled carpets and piles of garbage — and we can easily guess what will ultimately happen to most of those ailing cats, dogs, birds and reptiles.  But for all the neglect and mistreatment we see, we also seem to find the hoarders’ dysfunction quirky, and in some cases even funny. Rarely do we consider the mental condition that causes this behavior as serious as, say, schizophrenia. We believe these people to be ill, but only to the point of being eccentric.

A few people would like our perception to change. Researchers at the Center for Animals and Public Policy at Tufts University argue that animal hoarding represents a vastly misunderstood problem, one that goes far deeper than a few animal cruelty charges allow us to imagine. Despite the attention they get from the mainstream media, animal hoarders have been the focus of very little psychological research. For years it has been perceived as an animal welfare issue, and left for the shelters to handle by themselves. The human side of the problem has been largely ignored.

A group at Tufts’ Center for Animals and Public Policy, the Hoarding of Animals Research Consortium (HARC), coined the phrase “animal hoarding” in 1997. It was a watershed moment: There had always been cat ladies, and newspaper stories about them began to appear routinely a decade and a half ago, but they were referred to, rather benignly, as “collectors.”

Unfortunately, that label connoted nothing. When you walk into homes putrid with rotting carcasses and urine-soaked floors you see that the behavior is much more like the pathological hoarding of objects.

At the time of this writing there is no clinical diagnosis for animal hoarding despite a correlation with known pathologies such as obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD), and some would like to study it more. Is it a syndrome in and of itself? Most doubt that’s the case. But some day it might be included as a warning sign in psychological evaluations.

Perhaps the most prominent psychological feature of these individuals is that pets (and other possessions) become central to the hoarder’s core identity. The hoarder develops a strong need for control, and just the thought of losing an animal can produce an intense grief-like reaction. Preliminary HARC interviews have also suggested that hoarders grew up in chaotic households, with inconsistent parenting, in which animals may have been the only stable feature.

Formal hoarding research generally confirms what has long been suspected: Nearly three-quarters of all hoarders live alone, according to a Health and Human Services report; and three-quarters are women. Almost half are 60 or older, and cats barely edge out dogs as the animal of choice.  In 80% of the cases studied authorities found either dead or severely ill animals in hoarders’ homes. It’s not uncommon for cruelty-related arrests to be followed by court-ordered psychiatric treatment, but by many accounts, the counseling is not specific enough, and does little to curb the high levels of recidivism among those convicted.

As shut-ins go, animal hoarders enjoy spectacular branding. By rough estimates, these people are scarce: fewer than 10 in a million people, according to several studies. Nonetheless, the average American could probably describe the life of an animal hoarder better than that of, say, a state senator. It’s a matter of what, or shall I say who, captures our imagination, and state senators do not sleep in urine, swell up with infection or trip over cannibalized cat carcasses. State senators do sometimes go to jail, but it’s usually a paperwork issue — nothing so compelling as an exaggerated case of mismanaged doggy love.

The animal hoarder archetype is a vivid one, somewhere on the grid between wearied saint and avid stamp collector. They also keep a light foot in the serial killer camp: Like serial killers, they’re pathetic but obsessively thorough. They’re fascinating and they make for great stories. They’re quiet loners in the messy old house down the street, motivated by a perversion of something that could almost make sense.

However, unlike with serial killers, the neighbors of animal hoarders are never shocked when the authorities eventually come around. In fact, it’s often the neighbors who spent two months on the phone with the county — about the smell, the barking, the trash and the germs.

On their way to the squad car, hoarders often adamantly explain that they simply love animals, or that these particular critters would have died without their intervention. The would-be animal rescuers may even say they hear a calling. That may be; however, the problem is that they don’t always answer properly. The great irony regarding hoarders, of course, is that their loving benevolence commonly leaves a trail of horribly sick and neglected animals.

How do we predict whether obsessive animal love will evolve into something unhealthy? There was the case of the poor, ailing blind man who loved animals so much he figured he’d teach them about Jesus. Reports say he surrounded himself with all manner of critters; he rescued bunnies from snares and removed worms from busy roads. “Beware, my little sisters, of the sin of ingratitude, and study always to give praise to God,” he’s said to have once told a flock of birds that clustered around him until formally dismissed. This was St. Francis of Assisi, and his boundless animal love earned him not jail time but sanctity before God.

One woman who didn’t become a saint, but  instead faced charges for mistreating over 150 pets and barnyard animals, recalled, “Since I was a kid, I was scooping ants out of puddles.”

As she tells it, her collection represented a lifetime of devotion to animals — she ran something of a refuge, and did everything she could to give her wards good lives. Authorities, however, painted a picture of broken limbs, infections, dental abominations and helpless creatures that ultimately had to be put down in some cases.

“I got crucified … I just hope every animal went to a good home. That’s how I console myself,” the woman says. “Afterwards, I had death threats. I’ve been told to come back [to town] in a disguise.”

The psychological dynamics at play in a hoarder’s home simply didn’t make it into research journals until relatively recently. Related studies have proven instrumental for the Tufts group in drawing attention to the subject: In recent years, psychologists established a clear link between the abuse of animals and domestic abuse among humans. While it might have been common sense that someone who hits the dog is a good candidate for hitting his wife, defining the relationship psychologically required years of data. In the last 10 or 15 years, however, the idea has gained legitimacy and professionals can now have a serious discussion about it. Not only that, but the general connection between animal and domestic abuse has helped pave the way for further research into specific hoarding pathologies.

In reality, hoarding might not even have much to do with animals at all. It may, in fact, reflect human needs. Experts are now looking into the idea that animal neglect could be a sentinel for human neglect. A significant minority do have a dependent family member present. There is speculation that hoarders may adopt a parental role with respect to their animals. This then results in a reluctance to remove any animals, even when adequate homes are available. Many of the collectors emphasize that their animals give them unquestioning and uncritical love.  They tend to personalize and anthropomorphize their pets and view themselves as rescuers of suffering or unloved animals.

The largely uncharted world of animal hoarding is crossed right and left with shades of gray. Was Fund for Animals founder, Cleveland Amory, an animal hoarder? His Black Beauty Ranch boasted a wonderful collection of rescued creatures, and surely the occasional burro developed an infection or broke a leg there. Is it simply better funding that allowed Amory’s project to distinguish itself from the thousands of squalid backyard sanctuaries that repulse us each year?

Is it reasonable to apply the collateral damage model to the realm of animal generosity? In war, generals aren’t hauled off to court if some of their troops get wounded; it’s considered a consequence of battle’s noble gesture. Warped though it might be, it’s a noble impulse that guides many of these hoarders. Can it be argued that every malnourished kitten is simply a little friendly fire in the cat lady’s larger battle against homeless cats? Not if you’ve seen a hoarder’s house.

You can’t imagine what these places are like. Reports of eyeballs everywhere, ammonia so thick you need a mask to breathe … it doesn’t resonate that these people are just trying to help and it just “got out of hand.”

At AnimalPeople.com, a personals service for animal lovers, the motto reads: “Pets bring people closer.” Well, yes and no. The singles involved with AnimalPeople.com seem sane enough (even endearing, posing with their beagles and their tabbies), and in general animal lovers seem to be the good ones among us, the friendly types who don’t honk in traffic. But at certain quantities and under certain circumstances, pets do anything but bring people closer. Hoarding behavior, like other compulsions, facilitates a suspension of social interaction, which often then leads to the acquisition of even more animals. As a society we may have etched out rough boundaries for acceptable animal treatment, but there are those who have dropped out and remain free to draw their own lines.

The question ultimately remains: Are they criminals to be punished by our black and white judicial system or are they mentally ill and in need of intervention and treatment? There really seems to be little doubt that mental illness is the cause, and treatment would be the solution, if help were to be accepted. It is unlikely that a fine or jail time will stop the behavior for very long. Perhaps our system should look into treatment as a solution for the hoarder and the many animals she has yet to “love.”

Tags: Animal Planet, cat lady, Center for Animals and Public Policy, HARC, hoarding, Hoarding of Animals Research Consortium, mental illness animal hoarders, obsessive-compulsive disorder, OCD, shut-in, Tufts University