A Look At Animal Hoarding

This is a very good article about animal hoarding: http://veterinarynews.dvm360.com/too-many-pets-too-little-care-look-animal-hoarding?pageID=1

Here are some excerpts.

The classification of a hoarder

The definition of animal hoarding may surprise you. That’s because the crux of what classifies a person as a hoarder isn’t a particular number of animals—it’s whether or not those animals are provided with sufficient care, says educator Kirk Miller, DVM.

This means that someone with 20 cats who’s able to meet all of their needs wouldn’t classify as a hoarder. But a person with only seven cats who’s overwhelmed by the situation and unable to provide a minimum level of care would.

The animal hoarder typology

Building on the definition above, Dr. Miller says animal hoarders are often characterized by obsessive attempts to accumulate or maintain a collection of animals in the face of progressively deteriorating conditions.

“Even though things are bad or going downhill, they’re still trying to get more animals or keep the ones they’ve got,” he explains.

Animal hoarders fail to provide their pets with minimal standards of sanitation, space, nutrition and veterinary care, and they are unable to recognize the effects of this failure on the welfare of the animals, themselves and other people who live in the household, says Dr. Miller.

The three types of hoarders

(1) The overwhelmed caregiver
(2) The rescue hoarder
(3) The exploiter hoarder

Please do read the article in its entirety so that we don’t unknowingly become hoarders and it might help us identify friends who are on the verge of becoming hoarders too (and help them).

Remember that in hoarding situations, the animals are the victims and they suffer because of human ignorance and sometimes, arrogance.

Let’s always keep it small and manageable. Remember that we cannot change the lives of every animal we meet, it just isn’t possible.  Just do what we can and do it well – that will be good enough.

Source: https://myanimalcare.org/2019/06/07/a-look-at-animal-hoardin..

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