The Animal Hoarder: A Profile
According to Dr. Gary J. Patronek, V.M.D., Ph.D., “[H]oarders are by definition oblivious to the extreme suffering, obvious to the causal observer, of their animals.”(1)

There are three characteristics indicative of hoarding behavior:
• Hoarders amass a large number of animals.
• Hoarders fail to provide for animals’ most basic physical and social needs, including food, water, shelter, veterinary care, and sanitary living conditions.
• Hoarders offer excuses for, or deny, the abysmal living conditions of their animals and, in some cases, their children.(2)

According to the Vermont Animal Cruelty Task Force, hoarders also “find the thought of death so abhorrent that they deem an inhumane life far preferable to a humane death.”(3) This aspect of hoarding behavior is common among so-called “no-kill” shelters, where animals are often warehoused for years in deplorable conditions rather than provided with a peaceful and painless death by qualified technicians.