Confessions: Animal Hoarding

I thought this show was very revealing of people with this disorder. It became obvious many of them have depression or addictive tendencies or personality disorders. I had the impression the show helped them get treatment. This show exposed how people who want to "save" others, animals or people, aren't motivated merely by altruism. I didn't think this show was exploitive because it helped the participants, especially the family and friends who were at their wits' end. I did wonder how the producers found out about these cases and whether their shooting of the shows might have delayed some legal action...I would like to know more about how this show was produced.

The show as a show is educational and done well enough. However you get pissed quickly with how often you hear, 'poor them they need assistance they can't help themselves.' The people portrayed have little money, don't clean, have too many animals, and are just living in terrible situations. You feel bad for the animals but not the people who the show tries to get you to feel bad for. I only felt bad for the families having to deal with these people.

This show is very hard to watch, to say the least. Not only because of the subject matter, but I also think it's very exploitative, even by Reality TV standards. This is because a lot of these people seem to have mental issues that going beyond JUST compulsive hoarding. Like there was this one young woman named Kari (who was from MS) who seemed to have had AN ESPECIALLY hard time with this whole show because she REALLY DIDN'T get along with her mom and she might have had Aspergers' and a pretty severe anxiety disorder. And there was another young man named Shane (who might have been from Canada) that was keeping a bunch of exotic pets in a small apartment that he shared with his girlfriend that seemed to have had a below-average IQ and an Attachment disorder, which may have been THE CAUSE OF HIS ANIMAL HOARDING. So I don't think that those people really agreed to be on this show and were only on it because their hoarding had gotten so bad, they were facing legal charges for it! (Same thing with A&E's Hoarders and TLC's Hoarding: Buried Alive, but at least those DO have some entertaining moments that keep them from being downright unwatchable to someone who dislikes the whole genre of Reality TV in general!)

This show, I rarely watch reality but because I am a Mom to three shar-pei, I do watch the animal hoarding shows. A lot of reasons people hoard is due to OCD or depression. Please get help.

It is understandable but sad and tragic. The episode on Animal Planet last night where the man adopts a horde of mastiffs after the tragic loss of his young wife Kim. The dogs are so sweet, yet too big for him to care for, and he also neglects his health as he is on a cardiac pacemaker. His daughter helps him to get medical help, but the psychological issues are so much deeper.

The other couple, a woman with seven dogs and twenty-seven cats. While it seems excessive, her heart is in the right place. She lost her brother to kidney failure. She is very distraught and her marriage starts to unravel. Her therapy is to drive to strip malls and look for stray cats, she brings them back to her house to "rescue" them.

This is a complex psychological issue, so please do not judge until you have gone through a tragic accident or death in the family. A great deal of these people have no coping skills, it manifests in some way...sometimes in that they try to help animals with no support system.

At least the show has redeeming qualities in that the people get real help: there is a heart to it. It's not just reality trash and celebrities. Recommended.

What's most shocking about this program is that child and elder abuse charges haven't been filed against some of these people already. Filth, vermin, and raging mental illness on full display. Tragic.