An animal hoarder is a person who keeps large numbers, sometimes hundreds, of animals, usually domestic pets like cats and dogs.
Animal hoarders are typically female and elderly (the "cat lady" stereotype), and cannot adequately care for their animals. When their houses are opened, there are often many sick or dead animals and the homes are dirtied with animal feces and urine, despite the hoarders' claims that they take good care of them.
Some experts say animal hoarding is an addiction, others that it is a form of obsessive-compulsive disorder. Addiction is an uncontrollable compulsion to repeat a behavior regardless of its consequences. ...
Animal hoarding involves keeping of higher than typical numbers of animals as pets without having the ability to properly house or care for them, while at the same time denying this inability [1].
Animal hoarding is also a serious animal welfare issue, affecting up to a quarter-million animals—mostly dogs and cats—in communities throughout the United States.
Animal hoarding is also a public health threat, as hoarding creates highly unsanitary conditions on the properties of hoarders.
Animal shelters, or what used to be known as pounds or dog pounds, are either governmental or private organizations that provide temporary homes for stray, surrendered, or abandoned pet animals.
The animal is kept at the shelter until it is reclaimed by the owner, adopted to a new owner, placed with another organization, or euthanized.
Animal Welfare groups and volunteers are attempting to change that point of view by educating owners and potential owners about the lifelong commitment involved in adopting an animal, how to be a responsible pet owner, about the large number of adoptable animals available at shelters, and about the often poor condition of pet shop pets.
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