The psychology of animal hoarding

[Whispering Winds]

America has become a hoarding nation. I was watching a CSI a few months ago, and I think it was Gary Sinese who made the remark that there was so many million storage units in the US. There are junk hoarders, clean hoarders (I think of the extreme couponers as clean hoarders) and animal hoarders. . .look how people went crazy over the Beanie Babies and had tubs upon tubs of them . . .that's hoarding whether we want to admit it or not. I LOVE Xmas, had tubs upon tubs of decorations that I coveted and LOVED beyond all holiday decorations. After these shows came on about all these hoarders, I took a long look at myself and saw that was where i was headed . . .so I have been cleaning out. I do have 7 dogs, but everyone is healthy and happy and in good condition and i can afford vet care for them if needed. I do a lot of my own medicine and shots, so that saves a bundle. . .not all house dogs either, but the little ones come in at night . . .just my opinion. Interesting topic.

 

[welsummerchicks]

btw punkadoodle, researchers contrast many aspects of object hoarding with aspects and characteristics of animal hoarders and animal hoarding.

I don't think the two types of hoarding actually have much commonality between them.

 

[gritsar]

Quote:
I applaud you for your sensible care of your animals. I see nothing wrong with doing your own at home health care for your animals. I always did. The only three animals I have owned that got/get the majority of their health care from a vet are my late dog Charlie Girl and the boys, Jax and Kane. Even if we couldn't afford good vet care for them, which thankfully we can, I would move heaven and earth if one of them needed care and I wasn't able to pay for it. I would find a way.

By the way, I have a hard time believing that the animal hoarder I know personally really and truly cares about her animals. She's only good to them if it suits her mood or needs. Otherwise she can be downright mean or neglectful.

 

[punk-a-doodle]

Welsummer, are you sure you aren't talking about articles that talk about the difference between animal hoarding and the more studied OCD-linked hoarding? I haven't personally seen anyone deny that animal hoarding and material hoarding are linked, more that researchers do not understand where hoarding fits in and if animal hoarding is distinct enough to be a subset of hoarding. In a way, I guess you could kind of compare it to schizophrenia. There are different categories for it (ie. paranoid versus catatonic), but they are still seen as related. A lot of the debate about hoarding seems to be whether it should really be linked as a symptom of OCD, or if it is a distinct mental disorder and just shares a high rate of comorbidity.

This is a pretty recent article:
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/da.20826/full

Even though it looks at differences, the article does not propose that these two types of hoarding are completely distinct. Indeed, you will find people who hoard both animals and objects. Feces hoarding is also likely to be related, even though it has differences in expression.

 

[punk-a-doodle]

Grit, there is a lot of argument over whether hoarding can be comorbid with a wide variety of disorders. If that is the case, it could potentially occur alongside a disorder characterized by lack of empathy (more rare, people often mistake behavior as lacking empathy when it doesn't, things like narcissistic pd or antisocial pd would count). It would not be the hoarding causing the lack of empathy in that case, and I would not measure all hoarders by that one individual. The person you know may also not be someone showing symptoms consistent with animal hoarding, but rather, say, is someone with a large amount of animals who exerts control over them knowingly. Just some food for thought.

 

[welsummerchicks]

Apologies, I can't seem to correct this font size.


Quote:
What I was referring to is that many researchers will indicate SOME commonality between object hoarding (in general, not specific to OCD) and animal hoarding as you noted, but most seem to feel they are NOT THE SAME. I read several articles that CONTRAST the two and agree that there are significant differences. Commonality, yes, and differences, yes.

My own feeling is that at this point in time, there has not been any causal link at all, proven between animal hoarding and OCD - yet. By causal, I mean that 1.) animal hoarding is due to OCD and NOTHING ELSE(even if only in a small subset of total hoarders) - 2.) if the OCD were successfully treated the animal hoarding would STOP - that's I think where the whole causality chain falls apart, and even, will keep falling apart.

I think a different study design could show that in SOME cases, OCD is the underlying issue, but I think that's going to be more frequently the case with object hoarding than animal hoarding....PLUS....I think that many animal hoarders have multiple issues and long-established habits that compound solving the problem.

Dementias and many brain disorders feature object hoarding, and that link has been fairly well proven, except of course that there is no treatment for most dementias and brain disorders, so you can't 'cure' them and observe if the hoarding stops.

The bottom line is that I just don't think hoarding is or will be a simple, one pointed behavior with one fix and one approach - ever.

I'm not 100% comfortable with it being added to the DSM as a DISORDER, either. Much of that is because I don't feel anyone has proven it is a disorder rather than a symptom that can have dozens of underlying causes.

I actually think of hoarding as a SYMPTOM and a BEHAVIOR rather than as a disorder, in other words.

For example, I would compare it to 'self neglect' - which can have many causes (or even multiple ones in one person).

And whatever underlying biological disorder is present, I think habit and other contributing social problems are very, very important as well.

Why make a point of this?

Because I don't feel that animal hoarding can be treated in a simple, one-approach fashion.

And I think that because of health insurance and finances, we have WAY WAY too much emphasis on brief counseling - often just a few sessions, being a 'TREATMENT' for problems that have far, far more chronicity.

For one thing, I believe there are a great many 'animal hoarders' that are simply trying to make money off of animals. And they don't want to dilute that profit by giving them decent feed or housing. And I think when caught, these people tend to claim they have some sort of 'problem' that needs 'help'. This is how they avoid a judge telling them they can't ever have animals again - in other words, it's a dodge - 'when I get the treatment I need I can own animals again'. It's also common (especially with horses) to claim one just recently 'got in over their head' financially, and again, that is an effort to leave the possibility of animal ownership open in the future. A few counseling sessions, a new job, they're good to go again.

A good many of THESE guys have been pulling that sort of nonsense for decades. Successfully. Creating a disorder means they can 'self identify' - read the DSM and tell people what they want to hear.

But it ALSO means that less skilled officials will 'DISORDER GRAB' - 'Oh, this person's problem is X' - which causes an awful lot of the REAL issues to be missed.

On the other hand, if it remains a COMPLEX issue, a sign of something else that requires a multi-faceted approach, I think that makes it harder for the manipulators to manipulate.

And I think 'complex issue' better represents the diversity of it - again - because I think of it as a behavior and a symptom, not a disorder.

What I would prefer is that first of all, the animals are removed from the home and the person is barred by a judge, from owning any animals - AT ALL - for at least several years, but that that decision is based on KNOWING what the problem or problems are.

Most of the time, hoarders appear, at least to me, to have MANY problems - financial problems, especially. They could keep a large number of animals if they had a larger, purpose built facility with kennels and pens and pastures and exercise areas, proper loafing areas and adequate feed and watering. And if the animal's grounds were cleaned frequently.

I'd say 100% don't have the finances - or the mental organization - to set up, manage and finance a private zoo. That's a lot of work, money and organization. Instead they cram many cages or loose animals into a house, which is inadequate and threatens their own health and that of the community.

OCD is treatable - if it is severe it is partly treated and partly 'managed'. Dementia can be 'managed' - medications to slow it down and an environment that is low stress, low demand and keeps the person as mentally stable as possible.

Self neglect from brain disease - very difficult to manage and not 'treatable'. Requires a great deal of usually - professional, experienced, intensive, daily assistance.

Alcoholism, treatable, though even after forsaking alcohol many will need support and encouragement to stay off alcohol.

The low self esteem, getting satisfaction from accumulating animals instead of healing and improving relationships with humans - now that is the tough one. Such a person is not ill enough to be mandated or ordered treatment, and these problems, which seem the LEAST severe, are often the most persistent and difficult to get the person to accept help for and be motivated to continue working on it.

 

[punk-a-doodle]

If you have time, please send those my way. I have a deep interest in subjects like these. Just going by what I've read so far, I feel like enough isn't known yet (acknowledged by many researchers it seems) about hoarding to really break it down and categorize it, so I agree about being mixed on seeing it added to the DMV. Not that they don't constantly change it, haha. I'd like to see a lot more studies on hoarding behavior, especially ones focused outside of OCD (most studies I've read seem to be within that area), as I am not convinved that hoarding is OCD specific either, and it seems that there is a lot of debate about it.

I also agree that it is a complex and poorly understood issue. I do think there is too much overlap between animal and object hoarding (especially when the occur together) to feel they are completely separate issues though. I also agree that many people who breed without providing proper care don't actually fit in with actual hoarding, but rather than self-identifying as hoarders, it is usually others I see applying the lable of hoarding in a context where it doesn't seem to fit. I meet way to many people who think that if you have anything over three animals, you are a hoarder. X)

 

[KDailey]

Quote:
I think this is very well said!

In our town there is a homeless man that wanders the streets all the time and guess what? There's a dog (looks like some sort of lab mix) that follows him everywhere! The dog is not tied to him, on a leash or some sort of electric shock collar that the man uses to keep him close. It's skinny, yes. But it doesn't have to stay with him. It chooses to! The man shares the food he does get with the dog and I'm sure that dog would follow him to the ends of the earth.

It may not be the best situation for the two but do I think they're perfectly happy with each others company? Yes I do! And I don't think there's a single person that would take that dog from him no matter how skinny it is. Well, I take that back. I know of one instance when animal control was called but they actually told the person that called, "Oh that's just Todd, he belongs with Old Man Jack (the homeless guy). The reason why I know this is because the two of them walked by my work and the woman I was helping mentioned that she had called AC and that that's what they told her. She wasn't from here and we quickly explained things to her.

I think that Todd truely makes old man Jack's life better and vice versa and I wouldn't deny them that for a second...

 

[Orchid]

I don't necessarily think animal hoarding consists of having more animals that you can comfortably afford - it consists of having more animals than you can actually care for - which is not just monetary, but includes having adequate CLEAN space for the animals, adequate interaction time, etc. Having 50 cats in a small house, with overflowing litter boxes, dead and dying cats, half of them too wild to touch - that's hoarding, and doesn't necessarily have a thing to do with money. It's a state of mind, and not a healthy one in any way.

 

[gritsar]

Quote:
Yep I think we already discussed that it isn't a matter of money, at least in MHO. It's a matter of having more animals than you can properly care for. Can a single individual care for 50 cats giving them everything they need including clean litter boxes, health care, affection and other things they need to be healthy?