What is REALLY animal hoarding?
Animal hoarding is more than just having a large number of animals, although numbers do need to be taken into account. The published definition of an animal hoarder [Patronek 1999] is someone who:
Accumulates a large number of animals, and
Fails to provide minimal standards of nutrition, sanitation, and veterinary care, and
Fails to act on the deteriorating condition of the animals (including disease, starvation and death) or the environment (severe overcrowding and extremely unsanitary conditions), and
Fails to act on the negative effect of the collection on their own health and well-being and that of other household members.
Taken to its inevitable conclusion, animal hoarding results in considerable animal suffering from neglect. The health and welfare of both the human and animal occupants of the home may be at risk from the accumulated clutter and squalor [HARC 2002]. The risk to the hoarder of self-neglect has also been described [Nathanson 2009]. In worst-case scenarios, the home will be so damaged from accumulated feces and urine that it is condemned as unfit for human habitation.
Animal hoarding occurs in every community, and it is estimated that there are three to five thousand cases each year in the US, involving up to 250,000 animals. There is now a searchable database of cases with descriptions of their consequences for animals, people, and communities.
With this said, this is still not a reliable guideline to define what some would say is a growing problem in the United States.
Lets look at each “rule” separately. Our example owner would be a sled dog team owner. Well by definition they have MANY dogs. One team consists of at least a dozen dogs. Besides the dogs that they have that already pull sleds, they have the females that breed the new dogs, young dogs in training, and old retired dogs. So does that make this person a hoarder? No, it makes them a breeder and a serious racer. One of the kennels pictured has 52 dogs plus other animals!
Fails to provide minimal standards of nutrition, sanitation, and veterinary care. Well WHO set they “minimal standards” ? Sled dogs are outside, working dogs that live their lives on a chain in all kinds of weather with a dog house stuffed with hay in the bitter winters. See the picture on the right. By people in the “Lower 48” that would be considered inhumane. These dogs eat, sleep, and defecate all in the same confines of their chain and in some weather that is muddy and dirty. Their food may consist of a gruel cooked up by the owner of fish scraps, meat scraps and other leftovers fed once a day and never see water in the winter. As for veterinary care many of the dogs don’t see a vet for routine things since the closest vet may be hours or days away. Not many are spayed or neutered. Is that cruel ? Is this hoarding? That is how it is done up there. These people care for their animals and love them. Many of these people depend on their dogs for their living and sick, uncared for animals will not win races or produce healthy valuable litters.
The last two “rules” are also subjective. What one might consider deteriorating conditions or overcrowding may be just a temporary thing brought on by the weather or the animals being in training. So does using the dogs and keeping extra to see how they turn out make that person a hoarder? No. And finally, some people get so wrapped up in preparing for a big race that it is all that they can think about to the detriment of other things. I bet the dogs love all the attention but that does not make them a hoarder.
Yeah, I know what you are going to say "Well, that is okay for a sled dog owner." Well maybe it is but to make hard and fast rules they need to be implemented fairly across the board. So if it is okay for the sled dog owner then why is it not okay for the guy/gal down the street that keeps 20 pits in the same way but uses them for breeding and some pulling contests? OR heck the person that has 20 rescued strays chained up in their yard? OR the fabled "cat lady"
So the next time you walk past someone’s home and hear a pack of dogs barking, don’t just jump to the conclusion that that person is a hoarder. Making an accusation like that with out substantial REAL evidence can destroy someone’s life and most likely the lives of the animals you accuse them of hoarding.