Why do people hoard animals?

This story caught my eye: http://www.oregonlive.com/west-linn/index.ssf/2010/07/pet_rescuers_surprised_by_west_linn_hoarders_menagerie.html

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Pet rescuers surprised by West Linn (Oregon) hoarder's menagerie

A parrot at the Oregon Humane Society is crying out for help. No, not figuratively --a yellow-naped Amazon named Andy sits in his cage in a heated room at the shelter, surrounded by other exotic birds, cawing one word over and over: "Help!"

The bird's bizarre cry is just one facet that sets apart the hoarding case uncovered in West Linn on June 17, in which more than 70 animals were found in the home of Marcia Gredvig, who committed suicide.

A lot of the animals she surrounded herself with are exotics, which means that the largest among them require special skills and are a lot harder to place than your average house cat.

Few mammals from the West Linn house survived. Gedvig took 26 dogs and one cat with her into the room in which she killed herself by carbon-monoxide poisoning. Eleven of her pets were dead when Jim Doolittle, canine officer for West Linn police, pried open the bedroom door.

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It's astonishing to me that someone would do this.

which takes a lot of therapy to overcome.

Should I seek professional help?

/kidding

Again, likely not.

If you have 41,500 tracks in iTunes on one hard drive you likely have them well organized and can find what you want when you want it. Those who are truly mentally ill hoarders are nothing like that because their lives end up being controlled by their compulsive hoarding.

I can't keep track of these albums and their artwork anymore!" Keeping the CDs and LPs they were ripped from does, however, create some space problems-but I suppose I need them in case the copyright police come here.

I thought I was pushing it with 20,000 but you've got double!!! :headbang:

I am a song hoarder though, I need to face it.. NOT an animal hoarder though

They do care, but have more heart than reality. What they need is mental health help.

that said, that bird, and the rest of it's flock mates also went through a very traumatic experience...

And I for one am not amazed the bird is asking for help. Speaks to the true nature of their intelligence.

Jim Doolittle...a dog catcher...:rofl:

I have felt for a while that being a rescuer for some people is the same psychosis as the hoarder..maybe being a rescuer enables animal hoarding. Not to say that every rescuer is a hoarder, just a couple I have known were on that plane, imo.

It's always women who seem to amass large collections of animals, largely passive aminals such as cats.

It's seen as an attempt to surround themselves with "children" that they can look after, since they have none of their own. They may have longed for children and moved on or may have adult children that have left them.

I'm not sure of the details and I may have it wrong, but I read it somewhere a long time ago.

here in L.A. that had over 500.

That's one of the saddest I've seen.

There's a new series about hoarding on Animal Planet, starting July 21st.

http://press.discovery.com/us/apl/programs/confessions-animal-hoarding/

Parrots don't have an easy time of it. I remember reading that 85% of them are given away or sold within the first 2 years. Most people don't have any idea of the challenges of keeping a parrot, and seem to think of them mostly as an exotic ornament.

:cry: People who do this aren't even really animal lovers.

How can they stand the obvious misery they put animals through? They shouldn't have been trusted with the care of animals in the first place.
Animals don't have rights though, oh well! :eyes: