Confessions: Animal Hoarding

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.