Dozens of dogs taken from single-family house

By Tom Mooney

Animal-control officers, called to a house on Phebe Street Wednesday afternoon for a report of pet hoarding, witnessed a waterfall of dachshunds and Chihuahuas come spilling down the stairs from the second floor.

About 50 dogs, all but 3 of them of small breeds, were living in the single-family house at 77 Phebe St., said Jennifer Siakotos, a veterinary technician with the Providence Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals.

Siakotos said all the dogs seemed to be in good shape and the house was relatively clean. But an ordinance does limit to three the number of adult dogs someone can have in the city.

Animal control officials from Pawtucket, East Providence and Providence took temporary custody of the animals until their care was further investigated, said Joseph Warzychi, an investigator for the SPCA..." More

Dozens of animals seized from home

By: Dan Gouthro

A Newport woman is being investigated after dozens of animals were found inside her Kay Street home during a small fire.

The animals were discovered on Tuesday after firefighters responded to the home.

39 cats, one dog and one snake were removed by the Newport Animal Control, the Newport Police Department and even the Hazmat Team.

However, crews have since captured six more cats also found at the home. Additional traps have been set because animal control officers believe there are even more animals they simply have not found..." More

Officers called back to cat hoarding house

By KATIE DAVIS

Animal control officers and members of the Rhode Island Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals were called to a house in Woonsocket on Monday to seize cats living inside.

Animal control officers said they believe the woman who owns the home had been hoarding them.

“Once they come here, she befriends them and she takes them in,“ said Dr. E.J. Finocchio, of the Rhode Island SPCA.

But instead of helping animals, experts said hoarders are doing the opposite.

Cat food, cat hair and cat feces were visible on the floors of the home..." More

‘Those were my babies’ — animal hoarding is a complex psychological problem

By Michael P. McKinney

Cats, hamsters, guinea pigs, ferrets, dogs and one 25-year-old turtle –– 49 animals in all carried from a heatless Pawtucket house.

Forty-three cats, some dead, found in a Providence house.

A house in East Providence with 250 birds, not all of them alive.

Removing animals en masse from houses and apartments has become part of the job for municipal animal-control workers. What’s at work when someone keeps scores of domestic animals in their home is hoarding. But despite the disturbing cases that animal-control officers sometimes encounter –– animals malnourished, sick, semi-feral or dead –– the hoarders often believe they are animal protectors, animal-control officials and researchers say.

Hoarding is recognized as a complicated problem and has spurred a specialty among psychologists and researchers around the country over the past decade. Some are rethinking whether animal- and object-hoarding share the same roots. And a work group at the American Psychiatric Association is exploring whether to make compulsive hoarding a separate diagnosis in the next edition of the diagnostic manual used by mental-health specialists.

“It’s something that is being recognized now as a serious situation,” said John Holmes, who has been Pawtucket’s animal-control officer for 35 years and has dealt with many animal hoarding situations. “It’s only been the last 10 or 12 years that we’ve been seeing more and more of these cases.”..." More

Bonniedale Farm

Dec 10, 2009: A happy ending is in the works for rescued farm animals at foreclosed Rhode Island sanctuary

The residents of Bonniedale Farm, a recently-foreclosed farm animal sanctuary in Rhode Island, are in good hands today thanks to an agreement reached between the sanctuary's former owner, Dan MacKenzie, and the mortgage company that forced him to leave the property earlier this week.

After MacKenzie's hasty departure from Bonniedale -- he told the Providence Journal that he'd been given only 10 minutes to vacate on Monday morning -- things quickly went from bad to worse for the animals. According to Rhode Island Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (RISPCA) President Dr. Ernest Finocchio, he found horses and pigs without water during a visit to the farm Tuesday. More troubling still, animals like llamas and pot-bellied pigs seemed to be going missing, and it was unclear whether they'd been removed by concerned animal lovers or simply stolen.

MacKenzie's concern for the animals' welfare prompted him to seek a court order to ensure they'd be cared for in his absence. A preliminary agreement, in which Finocchio would assume the responsibility for their care for a 24-hour period, was reached Wednesday.

Representatives from both sides of the foreclosure were back in court today, resulting in an agreement that the Bonniedale animals will remain under the care of the RISPCA over the next few days,according to the Journal. After that, the RISPCA hopes to find new adoptive homes for the animals, which number more than 130 and include many rescued from abusive or neglectful owners..." More & video

Dec 9, 2009: Wells Fargo is accused of animal neglect following foreclosure of Rhode Island farm animal sanctuary

Allegations of animal neglect against an unlikely culprit -- Wells Fargo -- prompted a Rhode Island man to take the bank to court today. Wells Fargo recently foreclosed on Bonniedale Farm, a sanctuary that houses more than 130 rescued farm animals; Dan MacKenzie, the sanctuary's former owner, argued in court that the bank had failed to provide proper care for the animals that remained after he was evicted.

Although friends and animal lovers offered donations in the hopes of saving Bonniedale from foreclosure, the effort was too little, too late. MacKenzie on Monday was ordered off the premises, where he's cared for rescued animals including pigs, horses and turkeys for eight years. (According to MacKenzie, the foreclosure itself stems from a simple mistake -- he didn't know his mortgage had been sold and continued to pay the bank that originally held it.) And since the order to leave was unexpected -- MacKenzie said he was given only 10 minutes to vacate the farm -- he had no time to provide for the animals' interim care.

Had he known the eviction was coming, he told the Providence Journal, he "would have tried to place the animals somewhere safe.... Apparently they're not animal people at all."

With MacKenzie gone, who would care for the animals? His attorney, Guy Settipane, told the Journal that the bank claimed the Rhode Island Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals would step in to look after them. But RISPCA President Dr. Ernest Finocchio contradicted this, saying Wells Fargo had declined his organization's offer of help..." More & video