ASPCA on Animal Hoarding with Dr. Randall Lockwood

Dr. Randall Lockwood joined the ASPCA in 2005 and is currently Senior Vice President of the ASPCA’s Forensic Sciences and Anti-Cruelty Projects. For more than 25 years, Dr. Lockwood has worked with humane societies and law-enforcement agencies, serving as an expert on the interactions between people and animals. He has testified in numerous trials involving cruelty to animals or the treatment of animals in the context of other crimes, including dog fighting, child abuse, domestic violence and homicide

"...[Comment from Stryker]

I read that some of these hoarders operate under the guise of "rescuers" themselves. Isn't there a way to more closely monitor how many pets a person has "rescued"?

Randall Lockwood:

Yes. We are seeing a growing number of "rescue hoarders" who take in many animlas but who make no effort to find homes for them and often keep them in very poor conditions - unlike legitimate rescue groups. come may even have non-profit status and fancy websies - but the reality is that the situations for the animals is the same as other hoarding cases. I think about 1/4 of the cases we see are such "rescue hoarders".

Right now there are very few states that specifically set standards for rescue groups (Colorado is one) and the resources are often not there for a system of of inspection, also rescue hoarders often work through their own secretive network - rather than trying to help put healthy animals into loving homes..." More

Joelle Kott, Pitstop Puppy's Dog Rescue & Boarding Kennel - Buffalo, New York

Jun 14, 2010: Woman faces charges of animal torture

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• by: Eli George

After a lengthy and detailed joint investigation involving the Niagara County Sheriff's Office, the Niagara County District Attorney's Office and the Niagara County SPCA, which included Veterinary Medical/Forensic personnel, Joelle R. Kott, was arrested on June 10, 2010 for 6 counts of violating the Agricultural and Marketing Law (Section 353 -Overdriving, torturing and injuring animals / failure to provided proper sustenance).

These charges are in connection to a complaint filed on January 29, 2010 in which it was alleged that Ms. Kott was inappropriately housing numerous dogs, at two separate locations in the Town of Wheatfield . On that same date Ms. Kott was charged with two counts of Endangering the Welfare of a Child. Ms. Kott will appear at the Town of Wheatfield Court to answer all of the above charges at a future date..." More

Jun 14, 2010: Facebook Page with updates and petition information

Description of group: Bringing to light a current situation in the Buffalo/Niagara area in NY.

Joelle R. Kott, owner of PitStop Puppy's Dog Rescue was raided on 01/29/2010 and 60+ dogs were seized total. Dogs were take from both her home and her kennels on suspicion of cruelty and neglect. The Niagara SPCA had promised not to euthanize the dogs. This is no longer the case with new directorship.

Though she has been charged for endangering her children and they have been removed from the home as well, the County of Niagara has NOT yet brought animal abuse/neglect/cruelty charges against Ms. Kott. Until we can be assured these dogs will be given every chance possible and charges are filed, we will be a voice for those who can not speak for themselves.

Please take the time to review the information under recent news. Please join us in being guardian angels for these dogs, keeping vigil over this situation to assure the promises made to them and us are kept. To each group member here, these are "our dogs", and we demand justice is served...." Facebook page link

Facebook photos

Video of conditions

Feb 16, 2010: Dog rescue may not have been able to care for so many animals

By Neale Gulley

Animal cruelty charges have not yet been filed against a Wheatfield animal rescuer who was arrested last month for child endangerment after 24 dogs in and around her home were found living in proximity to two children.

All but six of the dogs were seized for their own welfare and one was found dead. Another 22 animals were taken from Pitstop Puppys, the rented former kennel at 3049 Niagara Falls Blvd. run by Joelle Kott of Norman Road since 2004.

Niagara County Sheriff’s Captain Bruce Elliott said Monday that results of SPCA veterinarians’ examination of the animals are still pending. The report may or may not result in additional charges of neglect. SPCA personnel had documented freezing conditions at the facility along with a reported lack of food and water at both locations.

In the meantime, however, an initial report of the charges against Kott has piqued the interest of a psychologist with the ASPCA used to testify about the human/animal relationship in similar criminal cases and before animal rights organizations worldwide.

Dr. Randall Lockwood, senior vice president of the ASPCA’s forensic sciences and anti-cruelty projects said whether the distinction is one of animal cruelty, abuse or animal hoarding, the animals are the ones that suffer.

The “hoarding” concept is nothing new, he explained, but more importantly it helps explain a recent rise nationwide in cases involving shelters shut down for neglecting animals they can’t properly care for..." More

Feb 1, 2010: 47 dogs seized from alleged ‘hoarder’

By Denise Jewell Gee

Joelle R. Kott thought she was helping dozens of dogs she had taken in at Pitstop Puppy’s Dog Rescue and Boarding Kennel on Niagara Falls Boulevard, but Niagara County SPCA officials on Friday said the rescue operation grew beyond her ability to care for the animals.

Twenty-one dogs taken from the unheated kennel at 3049 Niagara Falls Blvd. on Friday were found in 30-degree temperatures with “bone dry” water bowls and living in their own waste, said Kari McAlee, an SPCA veterinary technician.

SPCA workers and deputies from the Niagara County Sheriff’s Office also took 18 dogs and puppies from Kott’s Norman Road home after determining the conditions were “deplorable” for the dogs and two children in the house.

“I think she meant well, but now it just got out of hand,” McAlee said. “She has just too many. You can’t keep track, and you can’t take care of that many, even with the volunteers and help. It’s just too much for one person and one house.”

Officials also took eight puppies they believe belonged to Kott from a nearby farm, said SPCA President Brandy Scrufari.

McAlee described Kott as an animal “hoarder,” unable to say no when she ran out of room and resources to care for pit bulls and other dogs dropped off by other people..." More

Help fight animal hoarding in Poconos

Letter to the Editor of the Pocono Record:

Editor, the Record:

Over the past three months, the Pocono Record has reported three separate hoarding cases that involved dozens of cats found in squalid conditions in the area. Animal hoarding is a complex and intricate public health issue that affects the entire community and the ASPCA American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals) was concerned to read about its prevalence in the area.

Few people or agencies recognize hoarding as a community and social issue, with animals often being the symptom. Animal hoarding is not just about the animals. Usually, the animal hoarder is neglecting his or her own mental and physical needs, and may require assistance. We believe there is a dire need for a multi-agency task force that involves human social services, animal welfare and public health organizations. The common signs of an animal hoarder are deteriorating conditions and a lack of insight that the animals are suffering. Hoarders may have good intentions, but the reality is these animals suffer from lack of socialization, poor health and starvation, as well as other ailments.

Very often animals removed from hoarding situations are not good candidates for adoption, and their fate usually involves euthanasia.

It's important to note that not everyone who has multiple animals is an animal hoarder. A person may have more than a dozen animals, but if they receive regular vet care, food and a sanitary environment, then the owner would not be a hoarder.

Hoarding is a form of animal cruelty that can only be combated by involving the entire community. With the community's commitment, we can raise awareness on this critical issue and begin to make the changes needed to create a more humane society.

DR. RANDALL LOCKWOOD

Senior VP, Anti-Cruelty

ASPCA of New York

'Hoarding' Isn't Really About Rescuing Animals At All

By Judy Benson

To psychologist Randall Lockwood, someone who keeps more cats, dogs or other animals than they can reasonably care for isn't just a harmless eccentric.

Lockwood and other experts call them animal hoarders, and believe their behavior is harmful to themselves, other people and the animals they're housing.

The problem needs to be taken seriously, Lockwood said, and the underlying psychological disorder that led to the hoarding behavior confronted with treatment and other measures.

WHAT'S A HOARDER? More than the typical number of companion animals. Inability to provide even minimal standards of nutrition, sanitation, shelter and veterinary care, with neglect often resulting in starvation, illness and death. Denial of the inability to provide this minimum care. Source: The Hoarding of Animals Research Consortium,www.tufts.edu/vet/cfa/hoarding/index.html See also: www.aspca.org/aspca-nyc/animal-rescuers/animal-hoarding.html

On Friday, Groton Town Police arrested Rebel S. Foular, a part-time Humane Society employee, for allegedly living with 50 cats in a 672-square-foot trailer on North Road in what police and health officials described as neglectful and unsanitary conditions. She was charged with six counts of animal cruelty..." More

What It Is and What Communities Can Do To Halt It…

By Ruth Steinberger, Tusla Pets

What It Is and What Communities Can Do To Halt It…

Shocking stories of homes with sometimes hundreds of animals, languishing in filth and starvation, make headlines with increasing frequency. While the public expresses shock and newspapers blame social conditions resulting in excess animals, few people understand the dynamics of hoarding, a mental illness that results in horrific animal neglect, and often poses health risks to the people around it.

Randall Lockwood, PhD, Senior Vice President, Anti-cruelty Initiatives and Legislative Services of The American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (ASPCA) is a leading veterinary forensics researcher and an authority on animal hoarding. Lockwood defines hoarding as, “People who have more animals than they can reasonably care for and the conditions under which they are kept have deteriorated to the point of endangering the health of the animals involved, but also conditions affect the caretaker and others in the household.” He explained, “Hoarding does not simply depend on the number of animals that someone has. The key characteristics are in the conditions in which the animals are kept.”

Formerly called, ‘animal collectors,’ a term which may denote collection of valuable items like stamps or cars, hoarders confine animals in filth, often in uncomfortably small cages, underfed and dehydrated although food and water are on the premises; dead or dying animals are often found on the premises as well. Hoarding is diagnosed as an obsessive, compulsive disorder.

Lockwood said, “When we do training we tell officers to take pictures of the food—a characteristic of a hoarder is to have food on the premises that is not fed to the animals, while they literally starve. There will often be medications on the site, also unused or even bottles unopened.”

Many hoarders share a phobia of death. If not stopped, hoarding is usually fatal for at least some of the victims. It is not unusual to find carcasses of the victims in their freezer.

There is no single condition that produces hoarding, and a different mental diagnosis may result in hoarding behavior, but Lockwood said, “Most hoarders are of average or above average intelligence, many are of care-giving professions including teachers, nurses, veterinarians, social service workers, doctors—the majority are women who are over 65, but there are many variations.” Because the person may have been in a care-giving profession, in about 25% of animal hoarding cases, other dependent individuals, including an elderly parent, are endangered as well.

A key characteristic is that the hoarder seems oblivious to the suffering. Lockwood said, “They are in denial. You walk into the house and there are inches, or even feet of feces and there are even dead animals there, you can barely catch your breath, and they think there is nothing wrong. This is a psychological condition.”

The majority of hoarded animals are cats and dogs, but all other species become victims as well.
Lockwood has seen a dramatic upsurge in the number of hoarders who pose as rescue organizations. He said, “We used to characterize around 15% of the hoarder cases as so-called ‘rescue hoarders.’ I think that number has grown, partly in response to the No-Kill pressures. The foundation of that philosophy, in many cases, supports hoarders; legitimate organizations have unknowingly supplied hoarders with pets to get them out of their shelters in order to lower their euthanasia rates.”

Lockwood said, “Close to one third of the hoarding cases now are rescue hoarders.”

Lockwood gave tips for recognizing hoarders in your community. He said, “Suspect hoarding if a person or rescue will only receive animals at a location away from their facility, such as a parking lot. Another warning sign is if they only receive animals only at strange hours, so you simply do not expect to go past the front door. As with visiting a breeder, if you visit a rescue facility and cannot see how the animals are maintained, that is probably not a legitimate operation. The other characteristic is that the animals go in but do not go out, they keep accumulating animals. They often have no idea of how many animals they have and may express shock that it, “Got out of hand.”

Lockwood said some hoarders have tried to explain the presence of dead and dying animals by calling themselves hospices, and usually explain the condition of at least some of the animals as having cancer. Lockwood pointed out that even if an animal is sick, legitimate animal hospices do not have animals lying in their own filth, dying of neglect.

What can a community do to prevent hoarding? A community-based hoarder prevention task force is the best approach. Lockwood said, “We recommend bringing together the groups that are likely to encounter hoarders, including animal control, humane organizations, adult protective services, mental health, the police department and the prosecutor. If hoarding is detected in an early enough stage, you can try to initiate intervention if you have the staffing resources. It is unrealistic to expect a small, private humane organization to go into a situation which includes a serious mental health problem, a zoning issue, and more, and take action without back up.”

When asked if pet limits help, Lockwood responded, “There is a lot of resistance to pet limits, however they can be a good tool for monitoring the hoarder. We do see more and more prosecutions for animal cruelty because it allows the court to impose a long probationary period in order to provide for monitoring.” The pet limit can be the impetus for the initial call to the site.

An action plan is vital and a high volume hoarder is almost like a natural disaster. Lockwood said, “You need a chain of command and a plan to handle the crisis. The emphasis should be on relapse prevention. Hopefully the hoarder will sign over the care, however the greatest fear of most hoarders is that their animals will be seized and put to sleep, and that becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy because as conditions deteriorate that becomes the most humane thing that can be done. You want to initiate a response before that happens. Monitoring should be part of the plan.”

Lockwood notes that hoarders share common characteristics wherever they are. “We see this all around the country and indeed all around the world.” He hopes that through education and outreach, hoarders can be prevented from starting their destructive behavior..." More