The January/February 1999 ANIMAL PEOPLE feature “Animals in bondage: the minds of hoarders” reminded me of years ago attending a talk on the same subject at a humane conference.
Trying to describe why we so often find huge numbers of animals kept in filth and misery by people who claim to “love” them, the presenter discussed “good intentions gone bad” and “obsessive/compulsive behavior.”
I learned to use her phrases, when pressed for explanation––but as the years and cases pass, I’ve decided that I don’t know why people hoard animals. Neither am I certain that motive matters, except as a possible predictor of who might become a hoarder.
My duty in any cruelty case, as head of a humane society, is to remove the animals from the cruel situation, give them compassionate care, find them good homes if possible, and try to ensure that no more animals come under control of the alleged perpetrator.
Animal hoarding cases are cruelty cases. Whether one animal or 100 suffer, there is no valid excuse for it; original intentions are irrelevant; and legally extenuating circumstances such as mental illness or personal crisis are matters to address in the courtroom, often as obstacles to effecting the best outcome for the animals.
In dealing with hoarders, I’ve had my share of success––and disappointment. I am still haunted by the memory of animals probably long dead who were returned to an alleged hoarder by a judge who deemed unconsitutional the police entry into his home. The alleged hoarder not only regained the animals, but also regained custody of his two young daughters, whom the police were convinced he was routinely sexually abusing.
Life and death
Hoarders profess to love their animals, their children, and any other beings who fall under their control. Hoarders’ “love,” however, tends to be thinly veiled obsessive possessiveness. They use the word “mine” as insistently as a three-year-old in a sand box. They do not want to part with their animals under any circumstance––even death.
Hoarders notoriously believe that life endured in any amount of misery is preferable to death. They often also refuse to recognize death. As ANIMAL PEOPLE documented, about one in five animal hoarding cases involves people who hoard the dead with the living. They may keep dead cats and dogs stacked in a closet or corner––or in bed with them.
In our experience, hoarders also typically do not spay or neuter, even when claiming to be “rescuing” and “sheltering” the animals in their care. Thus we find that most female animals seized from alleged hoarders are pregnant.
But fear of death and the other facts of life to the point of pretending they don’t exist are only part of the phenomenon. Hoarders often hoard inanimate objects along with their animals: cigarette butts, soda bottles, newspapers, magazines, their neighbors’ trash, used sanitary napkins, etc. They are secretive too, usually living far enough from neighbors and the road to evade discovery for years.
Be aware that prosecutors can cite furtive behavior as evidence that an alleged perpetrator of mass animal neglect knows his or her conduct is wrong. This can be critical in winning a case, since most cruelty statutes state that the defendant must knowingly, intentionally or willingly commit the cruel action or inaction.
Hoarders often are almost frightening in their ability to one moment appear tearful, pleading, and pathetic, yet the next moment rage out of control. They can also become real physical threats, especially if armed–– which is why we always assign someone to watch the alleged perpetrator if he or she is present during the seizure.
Sometimes we have some idea in advance of what we’ll face, including an estimate of the number of animals involved. We can schedule personnel, plan cage space, and prepare the media.
Be prepared
Other times, we just get a frantic call from a peace officer, telling us we’re needed. Such calls tend to come when half our staff is out with the flu, the weather is bad, and one of our rescue vehicles is in the shop. Our ability to respond effectively is among the best tests of our preparedness.
We follow a very specific, well-rehearsed protocol. We load capture equipment, drugs, safety gear, and carriers into our emergency vehicles; assign staff to specific duties; and we immediately notify other agencies with whom we have reciprocal aid agreements. Some help provide personnel and transportation. Most shelters agree to accept a certain number of animals on short notice to ease the housing crunch at our shelter. Animals already at our shelter are transferred to other shelters after we have vet-checked and vaccinated them. If they are potentially adoptable, we alter them before they leave, unless the receiving shelter can do the altering in-house.
We caravan to the site of the alleged hoarding case to remove the animals. At the site, everyone puts on safety gear, we spray ourselves with insecticide, we secure doors and windows as best we can, we send in scouts to assess the situation, briefly discuss a game plan, and finally enter en masse.
Hoarding sites tend to be both unimaginably filthy and in dangerous disrepair. We can’t open doors and windows, as an animal might escape. The collector may be present, alternately pleading and screaming obscenities. Worse, sometimes the collector is present with an attorney. Usually––we hope–-police are with us. The media comes. Spectators gather. We work as quietly as we can––both for the sake of the animals and because we are videotaping the operation as evidence. We don’t need a voice on an evidentiary tape saying something like, “This woman must be an absolute lunatic,” or worse, as such remarks can be construed as prejudicial investigation.
We maintain communication with our shelter. Upon arrival at the shelter, each animal gets a number and a collar, is weighed, is photographed, and is given a complete veterinary examination. Each vet works with a scribe who logs each observation and treatment as evidence. Each animal is bathed and groomed. If we can, we attempt several interventions before seizing animals. For instance, we may offer to neuter and provide veterinary care for a few animals who will remain in the home, if the alleged hoarder agrees to release the rest to our custody, not acquire more animals, and allow us to visit periodically unannounced.
We do this because we would prefer not to have to seize large numbers of animals, most of whom will probably have to be euthanized. Seizures are tiring, frustrating, strain our resources, and break our hearts.
Seeking alternatives to seizure also shows our good faith. If we try to resolve an alleged hoarding situation without seizing the animals and prosecuting the perpetrator, we can cite our efforts to neutralize the public criticism that often results from “hammering cat-ladies,” or “persecuting breeders,” as the perpetrators and their allies tend to portray their cases.
Yet attempting to mitigate or prevent animal hoarding is usually futile. Hoarders are addicts. Like any addicts, they will do and say anything to satisfy the demands of their habit.
The real purpose of intervention is unfortunately less to prevent animal abuse than it is to maintain our ability to respond to it. We exist, like any non-profit, on public good will and donations. Animal hoarding cases can easily become a public relations nightmare. Alleged hoarders who are reclusive eccentrics may elicit sympathy. Those who manage an articulate, well-dressed facade may seem to make a credible case that they are misunderstood and mistreated––and that we are just hell-bent on killing animals.
The latter claim is particularly damaging when the alleged hoarder claims to run a no-kill shelter, whether or not duly incorporated and licensed, and has received previous positive publicity about efforts to “save” animals. In such instances, attempted seizures of animals and prosecutions can actually become financial windfalls for the alleged hoarders, as the animal-loving public responds uncritically to their claims and other suspected hoarders who claim to operate no-kill shelters jump in, vouching for each other’s credibility––including in legal actions against the would-be intervenors.
Lawsuits against humane agencies, brought by alleged abusers of all types, are increasingly common. I’ve been sued four times in five years, never successfully but always expensively. Accordingly, I stress that any organization that investigates, prosecutes, or handles animals confiscated in cruelty cases should carry officers and directors insurance, plus liability insurance, kept paid up.
Because misinformed media can irreparably harm an intervening agency by supporting an alleged animal abuser, I always call the media promptly on responding to any cruelty case. Giving the media the chance for a scoop tends to make me the good guy in the court of public opinion. Public outrage over animals being treated cruelly can move a district attorney to prosecute a case with vigor. How judges sentence convicted offenders is often influenced by their perception of public concern. Finally, focusing as much attention as possible on cases in which large numbers of animals are seized helps to bring in adopters, saving animals’ lives and opening up badly needed cage space in our shelter.
Definition
Confronting a hoarder who claims to have a no-kill shelter, our first line of defense is to explain exactly what an animal shelter is and is not. Regardless of specialty and killing policy, a shelter is by definition a safe haven, where animals are treated kindly and humanely. Animals do not starve in a shelter, don’t kill each other in fights, do not live in filth, do not suffer from untreated disease and injury, and they do not breed.
Authentic no-kill shelters follow these rules as closely as any, and are hurt as much as we are when hoarders convince the public that hoarding is “no-kill sheltering.”
It may be that the growth of an organized, recognized no-kill sheltering community will help to fight hoarding––by rebutting the false claims of hoarders, by helping to recover and place the animals seized in raids, and––I pray––by standing up for those of us who do the raiding, triage, and euthanizing, when we are attacked.
Developing an effective joint response to hoarding should be among the areas where all of us in humane work find common ground.