Animal Hoarding ((alert))

[flnatv]

Here is the thing that most don't know...
Rabies shots typically are 3year shots... meaning vaccination should only be required every 3 years. They still mandate them be vaccinated yearly... why???? money IMHO.
My degree is Microbiology/Vet Medicine and have worked with many vets...
I have also had show dogs and many show people actually use titers to determine whether particular shots are still working or they need to revaccinate.

I do what I am supposed to do, but it frustrates me!!!!

Curious about the 7 companion animal rule... what are they considering companion animals? only dogs/cats?
Where do all the other critters figure in... ex: hamsters, lizards, chinchillas, horses, chickens, etc, etc. My horses are livestock, but I also consider them companion animals as they act like 1200 pound dogs. I have 3 cats, 3 dogs, and many other critters... wonder if I would be a considered a hoarder? I have 2 kids and we each have 1 dog and 1 cat... maybe with that crazy law we could count as 3 separate people each with their own animals?

Edited for spelling

 

[mulewagon]

Well, the "hoarder" idea is television-inspired nonsense. If the animals are being cared for humanely, who cares how may you have? You could have one animal living in misery and filth just as well as one hundred.

 

[pbjmaker]

Quote:
Here in Iowa the dogs get a rabies their first year and that one has to be boosted the next year - then every three years. They recently changed the law though that if you are even one day late you have to go back to the one year booster

Cats are still yearly.

I give my own distemper shots.

We have 5 dogs, 1 cat and several chickens/ducks but we are not hoarders though my neighbors think so. My dogs are up to date on shots, etc. We groom them ourselves (my husband is getting pretty handy with the razor) and they get high quality food. They are bathed regularly and go for walks. Yet one neighbor spent the summer calling animal control on us (3 times) Hmmmm animal control says we are perfectly legal and our animals are well taken care of.

 

[Smittenroade]

Quote:
Sorry, but hoarding is not "Telivision-inspired nonsense....It happens all the time. Do your homework chief. I've known people that have hoarded animals and it is not pretty in the least.

 

[sourland]

Quote:

Absolutely! Another instance of people not minding their own business. Yes hoarding/mistreatment does exist and interventions are necessary. But in general, chief, it is just big brother or busy bodies minding our business.

 

[karimw]

Thank goodness I don't have many neighbors and the ones I do have are all farmers. They are familiar with the concept of "barn cats" and raise eyebrows at me when I tell them all mine are fixed and vaccinated. The ones I can catch anyway

My vet is a local vet and even he seems a little amused that I treat 15 half wild cats the same as I do my 3 house cats.

 

[welsummerchicks]

Not really.

It simply is more expensive and requires more space to have more animals - of any type. More money, more space, more cages, more feed, more veterinary care, more of everything each species requires.

More animals requires - more money, room, time, attention to neighbor complaints, waste disposal, the whole nine yards.

More rabbits require more cages and runs, more fish require more aquarium area(and filtering, and water changes, and food, and veterinary care), more horses require more acreage and feed and farrier and veterinary care.

Animals that are crowded, denied essential medical care, fed inadequately, kept in unhealthy, unnatural environments, are being abused,.

Herd animals need other herd members. Grazing and browsing animals need space and land and adequate fencing.

I am perfectly happy that various towns and villages and urbanized areas are putting a limit on the number of animals people can have.

As far as I am concerned, people who want more animals can move to places that allow more animals.

If people had heeded runoff problems, waste removal, neighbor complaints and neighbor rights, rational guidelines for space and care of animals, taken care of noise problems, runoff problems, these laws wouldn't be getting passed.

The fact is, people have the laws they want. If your township winds up with an animal number limit, it's because irresponsible people have created problems FOR A LONG, LONG TIME, to a LOT of people and a lot of people have finally gotten fed up and done something about it.

Laws always have exceptions - kennel permits for people who have more dogs, etc.

We went to a rabbitry in the suburbs to pick out a rabbit.

There was a small back yard, and in that small area, there were close to 500 rabbits, multiple rabbits crowded into a single cage, and piles of urine and rain soaked manure 3 feet or more high under and around and overflowing around each cage.

The stench was overwhelming. There was SO MUCH manure and urine. The animal's conditions were poor. Many had upper respiratory infections. Their feet and hind quarters were packed with manure.

I actually got dizzy, the stench was so horrible. Do you think her neighbors didn't smell that stench every single day? To be truthful, we were able to smell the stench several BLOCKS away from the property, and I am very sure that every single house within a quarter mile radius was smelling that horrific stench every single day.

She was selling these rabbits for rather high prices. We bought one, only to get it out of there. We spent nearly 2000 dollars on veterinary care, ultimately, but the rabbit couldn't pull through.

Because the rabbit organizations have failed to be self policing, because the conditions are so horrible, THAT is why these laws get passed.

YES, others suffer because of people like her. That's how it works. If every rabbit lover had refused to do business with her, she would have been put out of business.

Rabbit owners supported her, gave her money, bought her rabbits - FOR YEARS. YEARS. DECADES. With that disgusting horrible filth piled up like that for years, with rain running it off onto neighbor's yards, and with that godawful stench.

And YEAH, eventually, people get sick of that. Either the organizations are self policing and responsible, or the government HAS to do something.

That's something people tend to forget. Laws don't exist because of some interstellar conspiracy.

They exist because people don't tend to business. The organizations that 'LOVE' these animals, the people that 'LOVE' these animals, don't do their job, horrendous situations result, and bingo, someone finally gets sick of it - and finds out a whole LOT of other people ar sick of it too!

 

[mulewagon]

Quote:
Sorry, but hoarding is not "Telivision-inspired nonsense....It happens all the time. Do your homework chief. I've known people that have hoarded animals and it is not pretty in the least.

And is it having more than seven animals that makes that an unfit situation? No, it's the condition they are kept in. My sister-in-law has a dozen horses, but no one calls her a "hoarder" because they are clean and well-fed.

There are already words and laws for keeping overcrowded, filthy animals, which are "neglect" and "public health danger". The number of animals is only significant in relation to the amount of space they're in, and the amount of food and care they get. If the local laws on those points are inadequete, they need to be beefed up.

Trendy psychobabble, and melodramatic TV shows, aren't any help to anybody.

 

[welsummerchicks]

YES....AND....

'hoarding' is NOT 'a form of OCD'.

Thank one of those stupid psychobabble shows for promulgating THAT idiocracy!

A FEW people who hoard animals have OCD, there are a kajillian times more hoarders in the US than there are people with OCD.

They may have none, one or more psychological problems, but rarely, rarely do they also have OCD.

OCD involves intrusive and repetive thoughts and separate, distinct, simple actions like checking the stove or cleaning countertops - not complex, multistage activities like going and getting horse after horse after horse that they can't take care of.

OCD used to be thought of as a psychological disturbance, it is now known to be a very subtle form of brain disfunction that responds very well in most cases to treatment. People with OCD are not out of touch with reality and they are not out of control of themselves, but they often are confused and with why in the world these thoughts and actions occur.

Actually, a fair number of hoarders have NONE - ZERO - NO - diagnosable mental disorders. They just - HOARD ANIMALS. They have no loss of touch with reality, no dementia, no psychosis, nothing.

A FEW - SOME have problems of daily living, adjustment problems (such as 'empty nest syndrome'), mild depression.

Some have a long, long history of making bad choices and doing ill-advised things.

I've talked to quite a few over the years - they very often go to horse people in the area and ask questions like, 'How cheap can I keep a horse for? I don't REALLY need to get farrier care, do I? They don't really need vaccines, do they? Isn't that Coggins thing just a joke? Mine's got a big huge cut on its legs with puss coming out from my (godawful) fence, I don't REALLY need to pay for a VET, DO I? Can't I just put kerosene on it? Horses don't REALLY need hay or grain, DO THEY? Horses don't REALLY need anything bigger than a six by six foot pen, DO THEY? I don't really have to clean stalls, DO I? Can't I just run my horse in circles in the gravel parking lot to toughen up his feet, instead of getting him shoes? I'm doin' it now, and his feet are still bleeding some, so I probably have to do it more, don't I? I don't really have to CONDITION my horse before a 50 mile trail ride, DO I?'

Does that really sound to you like someone who WUVS their little darling animals?

In a great many cases I've seen, hoarding is about MONEY. People get a lot of animals because they want to make money selling them, and they simply don't give an 'S' as to what conditions the animals are kept in. If they invested more in care, they'd make less profit when they sold them!

The worst horse hoarder I know, was senile went we went to his farm, and for a good long time I was thinking 'oh poor him, how tragic', but I found out that his horses, nearly a hundred of them, had been kept in horrible conditions for many, many decades before he became senile - in fact, the horses were not cared for because he simply didn't feel like taking care of them and didn't want to put the money into care, and he never HAD felt like taking care of them.

The day before a show or sale, he'd bathe the horses, trim them up, and load them into the truck and off he'd go. The second worst horse hoarder I know, a person who made a lot of very unrealistic choices, but essentially, again, the conditions the horses were under was all about making more profit off his business.

The second one, spent years and years and years wheelin' and dealin' and getting people to 'donate' their horses, and pretending to be a dressage expert and a very, very fastidious and fussy horsebreeder. L. He left a trail of wreckage, too.

Frankly, there was absolutely no evidence that either of them 'loved' their horses. Every single thing both of them did revolved around making money as easily as possible.

The thing people have to understand is, even when some mental impairment is possibly present, it isn't always the reason, or the main reason for the hoarding!!!

For the majority of hoarders, suggesting they suffer from some untreated, undiagnosed mental disease, so 'poor them' and even 'oh how fascinating' - it's just total baloney. But it hauls in viewers so it's ok.

To say it's a 'form of OCD' discredits and stigmatizes and insults and degrades people with OCD, it's unfair, cruel and inaccurate.

I've done volunteer work with people with OCD for nearly 45 years, and I have NEVER MET EVEN ONE that had an animal hoarding problem.

 

[ranchhand]

Quote:
Would you clarify that bolded statement, please? It makes no sense as written. Thanks.

ETA, I mean what happens if they are truly sick?

We take them to Luv my Pet clinics at Petco. For $50 you can get all their basic shots and paperwork. A rabies vaccine there is $15, and at our vet it was $30. We take them to the vet if they have any sign of illness or injury that we cannot take care of. We also took all of our cats to the local animal rescue where they do spaying and neutering for $30. We have 9 cats and two dogs, and it was not making sense for us to take them to the vet every year just to pay $70-$100 each just to have the vet say they are fine.

Thanks, the way is was written made it sounded strange to me.

Reason being that to me the vet is a "vet clinic" or just "the clinic".

It sounds like you have a very practical and well thought out plan. I have been very blessed to find a vet who will really work with me. He will sometimes swap emails, pics included, to tell me what I'm dealing with and how to handle it. He once euthanized a chicken for me, no charge. Said it was a professional courtesy, since he has chickens, too.

As far as hoarding, the definition is a bit vague to me. I used to have a neighbor who had 25+ cats, all indoors. She spent all her non-working hours feeding, cleaning, litterboxes, meds, etc. She had no other life at all. But the vet came to her house for treatments, all the cats were clean and healthy, well fed and UTD. To me she was a hoarder. She had given up all chances at a normal life, to the point of her husband divorcing her finally.