Animal Hoarders: Pathways and Profile

This week I will have four blog posts on the topic of hoarding.  This post will focus on the hoarding of animals, followed by posts on mental health disorders in hoarders, a review of manuscript looking a genetic factors in hoarding and then finishing with a review of pharmacotherapy treatment of hoarders.

Hoarding occurs in a variety of forms.  Some individuals with hoarding collect newspapers, clothes or other specific items such as dolls.

One group of hoarders appear vulnerable to collecting animals.  As with all hoarding types, eventually the hoarding gets out of control leading to unsanitary conditions and disruption of interpersonal relationships.

With hoarding of animals, conditions can deteriorate to the point of significant animal malnutrition as owners have escalating costs to feed and provide veterinary care to their animals.  Most complaints to animal welfare agencies about hoarders center around animal health or sanitation associated with the behavior.

Steketee and colleague recently published a description of sixteen individuals with a problem with animal hoarding in the Review of General Psychology.    Although not a large number, it is one of the largest descriptions to data and provides some insight into the pathway and profile of animal hoarders.

For their control group, they interviewed a series of individuals who owned many animals but had no trouble with caring for them.  The animal hoarding case group had all been identified by referral from an animal protection agency that had investigated the hoarding household following a public complaint.

The study used a combined qualitative and quantitative approach with the key findings from the study showing the hoarders:

• Reported poor childhood attachment to their families
• Endorsed a chaotic childhood environment
• Endorsed human characteristics to animals
• Experienced extreme emotional reactions to animal deaths
• Distrusted authority
• Exhibited impaired adult functioning in home maintenance and work performance
• Endorsed more dysfunctional adult human relationships

The authors note their study supports the three pare theoretical model proposed by Patronek and Nathanson for animal hoarding:

1. Failure to development secure human attachments during childhood
2. Poor adult functioning leading to social and work problems with few friends and supportive family members
3. Development of a reliance on animals for emotional comfort

Some similar developmental abnormalities may be found in other hoarder subgroups. Substitution of interpersonal relationships with preoccupation with objects or animals seems to be a common theme.

Photo of young Canadian gosling walking across drive way with worm/grub in mouth courtesy of the author's private files.

Steketee, G., Gibson, A., Frost, R., Alabiso, J., Arluke, A., & Patronek, G. (2011). Characteristics and antecedents of people who hoard animals: An exploratory comparative interview study. Review of General Psychology, 15 (2), 114-124 DOI: 10.1037/a0023484

Patronek GJ, & Nathanson JN (2009). A theoretical perspective to inform assessment and treatment strategies for animal hoarders. Clinical psychology review, 29 (3), 274-81 PMID: 19254818