What do you consider an animal hoarder?

[Mrs MIA]

OMG!!!!

Those poor bunnies!!! The man should have been shot... no, his neck snapped and burned in the barrel... un OK... down girl... OMG... reading that just made me cry so hard...

 

[KellyGwen]

What do I consider an animal hoarder? A CHIPMUNK!

Ok, ok... sorry, couldn't help it! I needed a laugh, this thread was bumming me out a little...

 

[crtrlovr]

yeah, thanks for the little mood lift. Heartwrenching thread...

eta: not making light of an awful problem, but one human heart can only hold so much pain or hear of a certain amount of pain at one time, and this thread is getting close to my limit...

 

[Emzyyy]

Im 15 and take care of all my pets but the dogs alone.
2 budgies 'Boom' and 'Bang'
1 hedgehog 'Nutmeg'
1 tortoise 'Rocky'
1 Zebra Finch 'Zoey'
3 chickens soon to be 16 :]
i loveee them, and do chores so my mom will help pay for bedding, food ect.

 

[Emzyyy]

My dad rented a house to a nurse who he thought looked clean and decent. A few months later he went to check up to see the house. She wouldn't answer the door and the neighbor's had been complaining about her and he knew she was home so he broke in. She had stray cats she had got off the streets locked all up in one room BRAND NEW WOOD FLOORS! JUST REDONE no litter box, she threw the food into them no water. The beautiful wood floors BLACK! It was disguisting. She called the cops on my dad even though its his house in the first place so he should be able to see if he thinks their is damage, and imagine she is a NURSE! At a hospital.

 

[Beekissed]

I went to get manure from a farm that was giving it away this past spring. When we drove up to this place I knew it wasn't anywhere I wanted to be. This rough talking man came out and yelled with every sentence....he called me later on the phone and he spoke in the same manner, so, who knows?

Anyway, I digress. He directed us to the barn where the manure was located and we drove through a paddock that had about six donkeys and a few young horses. Out in the field stood about 20 more horses...no grass, too small of a field, gathered around some moldy hay. The paddock was fetlock deep in manure and urine. He opened a stall to pull a donkey out and my mouth dropped open. This donkey had deformed hooves from nontrimming and he had been standing on a sloping pile of manure about 5 ft. thick at the back and 3 ft. thick at the front. Very small stall and the manure was hard packed. No water in sight for this animal. We attempted to chip away at the manure but were unable to dislodge it with pitchforks even. As we were working on this and sinking calf deep in this paddock's manure, we noticed this man had two barns and they had animals in each stall. There were various cages scattered throughout the weeds, with poultry of every kind, goats, sheep, dogs, etc. We peeked in the adjoining stalls and noticed the manure was this thick in those stalls as well.

You can imagine, we were sick to our stomachs and then the man was shooing away a foal that had a broken leg and telling it that ,"you'll get another broken leg if you don't move". The more he talked, the madder I got. Seems those horses were rescue horses he got for the $25 adoption fee!!!! The horses in the field had no shelter from the sun, no grass to eat and scummy, green water to drink. The ones in the barns were in dark stalls on a mountain of manure.

Now, I'm not a sentimental animal-lover type person, but I couldn't get away from there fast enough. He started yelling at us as we drove away because we hadn't filled up our trailer! He called our house cursing and yelling that he had all the $hit we wanted, just come and get it! Bizarre and scarey at the same time.

Now, before you ask if I reported this....they GAVE him these horses for adoption! This is the same county that allows my sister to torture foster animals, okay? No recourse for these animals. None. I can't get them out of my mind, though.

My children and I would give our eye teeth for horses, but we have sense enough to know we can't support a horse right now. It breaks our hearts to know that there are about 30 horses, around 10 donkeys, and hundreds of assorted animals living in the worst conditions imaginable. Not to mention they have to put up with this evil individual.

 

[holliewould]

Mrs. AK-Bird-Brain :

OMG!!!!

Those poor bunnies!!! The man should have been shot... no, his neck snapped and burned in the barrel... un OK... down girl... OMG... reading that just made me cry so hard...

Well...I guess it's a major illness. It's a serious thing. I know what you mean though, but when you think about it.....well....it's just something you can't identify with because you aren't attacked with this illness and aren't exposed. Seriously though, these kinds of people are sick to the extreme. It's hard to treat because they are JUST NOW recognizing this kind of illness in humans. Sad. Just ill is all. Hoarders are around more then you think. My MIL for example. She won't even let go of an aluminum can, but she won't recycle it either. Same for her magazines and newspapers. Sad. She thinks she can use it some day. Hubby went up there 6 months ago, the woman saved and reused her paper towels so much that the sink.....well....lets just say the plumber thought they were diapers clogging up her pipes. Just a lot of people like this is all. I have a close friend who also works in the restaurant biz. She has such a problem with paid for food going into the garbage, she saves and freezes the nice leftover UNEATEN portions from a PATRONS plate for dinners for her family. And the rest of the gunk she puts in a 5 gal buckets and feeds to her fish (which is fine to me)...but, she just has a major disorder with discarding anything. My boss is another story. He's a neurotic freak. Can't wait to tap that one with you guys. Just saying, can't believe how common this problem is....and YES, it is a problem, in my eyes anyways.​

 

[goatkeepers]

Yes, it definately is a problem that is just now being recognized.

Beekissed, I don't know how to put this without offending you... But here goes.
Where there's a will, there's a way. Others have made great suggestions about contacting news crew-- they really DO LOVE this kind of stuff. Go about the city/county. A few phone calls could get the ball rolling. Contact ASPCA. There are so many ways you can go with this that doesn't involve the county.
You could save the animals at your sisters AND at the creepy guys' house. Please at least give it a try. I hope I didn't make you mad, I really don't mean to. I just wanted to make sure you understand that there's other options that don't involve the county. Good luck!

 

[pdsavage]

Animal hoarding
Animal hoarding involves keeping higher than usual numbers of animals as pets without having the ability to properly house or care for them, while at the same time denying this inability. Compulsive hoarding can be characterized as a symptom of obsessive-compulsive disorder rather than deliberate cruelty towards animals. Hoarders are deeply attached to their pets, and find it extremely difficult to let the pets go. They typically cannot comprehend that they are harming their pets by failing to provide them with proper care. Hoarders tend to believe that they provide the right amount of care for their pets. The American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals provides a "Hoarding Prevention Team", which works with hoarders to help them attain a manageable and healthy number of pets.[6] Along with other compulsive hoarding behaviours, it is linked in the DSM-IV to obsessive-compulsive disorder and obsessive-compulsive personality disorder.[7] Alternatively, animal hoarding could be related to addiction, dementia, or even focal delusion.[8]

Animal hoarders display symptoms of delusional disorder in that they have a “belief system out of touch with reality”.[9] Virtually all hoarders lack insight into the extent of deterioration in their habitations and on the health of their animals, refusing to acknowledge that anything is wrong.[10] Delusional disorder is an effective model in that it offers an explanation of hoarder’s apparent blindness to the realities of their situations. Another model that has been suggested to explain animal hoarding is attachment disorder, which is primarily caused by poor parent-child relationships during childhood.[11] As a result, those suffering from attachment disorder may turn to possessions, such as animals, to fill their need for a loving relationship. Interviews with animal hoarders have revealed that often hoarders experienced domestic trauma in childhood, providing evidence for this model.[11] Perhaps the strongest psychological model put forward to explain animal hoarding is obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compulsive_hoarding

 

[deb1]

Mrs. AK-Bird-Brain :

OMG!!!!

Those poor bunnies!!! The man should have been shot... no, his neck snapped and burned in the barrel... un OK... down girl... OMG... reading that just made me cry so hard...

Sadly there are people who believe that animals in shelters are better off dead. They think that anyone but themselves will be inadequate caretakers.

Here in NC there was a case of, I think, PETA members who were killing the animals brought to their shelter instead of adopting all of them out. It was a bit bizarre and I will have to relook up that article(Its been a few years ago)

I feel so sorry for the wife. Can you imagine loving someone with such a problem? That must be very difficult. At least she was able to get out when she realized that her daughter was being hurt.​