It's Easy to Hate Animal Hoarders

By:  David Mizejewski

This week's Animal Oddity is about a serious and troubling topic: animal hoarding.

The recent success of several television shows dealing with the issue of hoarding is, I think, due to what I call the train-wreck effect. Getting to go behind the veil into the homes of people with extreme hoarding behavior is like looking at a horrible accident: it's traumatizing to see but you just can't look away.

Animal hoarding adds the additional elements of animal waste and the emotional impact of seeing animals suffer. Those things combined with the eccentricities of the hoarders themselves (beyond their hoarding behavior) and their usual obliviousness to the severity of the situation seem to be the perfect recipe for an odd new television format: uncomfortable entertainment..."  More