Sperlin, Tina Susanne Animal Hoarding
The pathological collecting of animals. Current situation in Germany and impact on the Veterinary Medicine
A problem in animal welfare that public veterinary services are increasingly con-cerned about is Animal Hoarding, the pathological collecting and keeping of animals.
The term was first used by Gary Patronek in the USA in 1990. He defines an Animal Hoarder as a person, who keeps a large number of animals without providing a mini-mum standard of food, hygiene and/or veterinary care.
A first systematic investigation about Animal Hoarding has been published in the USA in 1999, in Germany however, no data concerning the subject has yet been col-lected. For the investigation questionnaires have been sent to all veterinary offices with questions about Animal Hoarding, specific questions about livestock and pet owner and also questions about measures being taken by the office and their suc-cesses.
Altogether, 80.5% of the veterinary offices took part with more than 724 question-naires being sent back. 219 veterinary offices reported about 625 cases, all over Ger-many every second office is affected. The work progress for one case of Animal Hoarding took 3 years in average, the longest case took 30 years.
Animals mostly being hoarded were cats (50.8%), dogs (45.2%), rabbits (19.5%) and pet birds (14.8%), in total over 50,000 animals were affected. In almost two thirds of all cases animals had diseases, mostly infectious diseases. In one third injuries were detected, especially from bad posture or skin injuries due to bite marks and other fight-related injuries but also concisions and missing limbs have been found. Additio-nally, endo- and/or ectoparasites have been found in 50% of all cases. In one third of all cases behavioural problems were found, mostly in form of damage from depriva-tion, stereotypy, bad or mislead behaviour as well as cannibalism/infanticide. One in five cases showed no signs of ill-health. In 30% of all cases food and/or water supply was non-existent or impaired. The hygienic circumstances were criticised in three quarters of all cases.
The average age of pet owners in this study was 50 years, more than two thirds were women. About 50% of the owners lived in single households, in all other cases tradi-tional family structures have been reported. Noticeable was a high percentage of children of legal age still living in their parental home up to higher age. All classes of professions were involved, expectedly a high percentage was found in people with a
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social or animal related professions. Three quarters were unemployed, retired or dis-abled for work.
A first measure after an incoming report to the veterinary office was a talk with the pet owners. In almost 50% of the cases access was denied or limited. Fines were not given as it seemed unnecessary or appeared to be unsuccessful.
Pet owners could usually be made compliant with statutory requirements and enact-ments, which have been given in 90% of the cases. As the most frequent measure, the official veterinary demanded to take the animals away from the owner, at least re-duce them to a manageable number, which was also often link with a prohibition to take in any more animals. Measures for care and posture improvements, veterinary care and hygienic measures from cleanliness up to epidemic control were the re-quirements. A Breeding prohibition was carried out by separation of animals accord-ing to gender or even castration as well as an interdiction of commerce.
A limitation to a specific number of animals was advised or arranged in about two thirds of all cases, but there is a big gap between what the veterinary office demands and what is being acted out by the law-enforcement. If fining and court orders keep being unsuccessful, following measures such as confiscations took a long time processing and the resulting verdicts were of variable outcome. In rare cases the sentence was a limited or total prohibition to keep animals, if the owner violated or-ders or in repeated cases.
The current situation stated that half of the owners kept residential where they used to. Only in a quarter of the cases people moved out of the jurisdiction of the veteri-nary office, sometimes suspiciously frequent and linked with inspected cases. A re-peated taking-in of animals with resulting problems known to the office occurred in 43.3% of all cases, in all the rest of the cases it seemed highly likely that owners might have a fall-back into old patterns.
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For the animals' safety as well as to help the owners improvements were developed on the basis of this investigation, which should serve the veterinary offices as a guideline for the administration process and conflict resolution. For illustration pur-poses, here a summary of the most essential arguments and results:
Guideline for a confrontation with cases of animal hoarding in a 10-point-pro-gram for veterinary offices and other Organisations, Institutes and Associa-tions involved:
1. Permanent changes can only be made by the owners themselves, therefore raising self-awareness is the primary task.
2. Every case is individual, schematic and mechanic processing should be avoided.
3. It is recommended to have a personal consequent concept when dealing with the pet owner, which means accepting the person but to object addictions and misdemeanour.
4. In respect for the owners' personality they should be allowed to keep a small number of animals, either castrated or of the same gender.
5. The presence of children in a family requires special attention to avoid the re-occurrence or duplication of the problem in the next generation.
6. By linking the jurisdictions of several Social Services, conflict resolutions could be developed and acted out in valuable cooperation.
7. Preferably, pet owners should get psychological, psychiatric and therapeutic help and treatment, but their consent as well as their cooperation is mandato-ry.
8. A regular and contemporary check-up by a member of the veterinary office is indispensable. The following points 9 and 10 are lying out of the jurisdiction of the veterinary office, but they are of substantial meaning:
9. Extensive laws are needed in the future for keeping, breeding and trading with all animals. Furthermore it would be ideal to have trained and specialised law-yers for animal welfare cases.
10. To help the owners, a diagnosis in human medicine needs to be established to allow further treatment and acquire therapeutic success.
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