In cases of animal hoarding, authorities are quick to help the animals, but not always the people who hoard them.
Recently, two elderly homeless women were arrested in Voorheesville for keeping 45 cats in their camper. The Mohawk Hudson Humane Society took the cats to be evaluated, while the two women were issued court appearance tickets.
Last week, authorities went to a home in Schaghticoke where they found more than 100 cats living in overcrowded conditions. It took two days for the Humane Society to get most of the cats out of the house, but they reported there were even more living inside the walls. Rensselaer County officials offered assistance to the family of four who lived there, but criminal charges were also being considered.
State Assemblyman Jim Tedisco wasted little time in using the Schaghticoke incident to promote a bill he’s sponsoring that would create a statewide registry of convicted animal abusers. Those on the list would undergo psychiatric evaluations and treatment, but they would also be banned from ever owning a pet again.
Tedisco’s bill gets one thing right: Pet hoarders need and deserve psychiatric assistance. They don’t however deserve to be criminalized and added to the same kind of database used for sex offenders. These are human beings who need help, too. The majority of these cases involve people who genuinely love animals and want to help them, but they eventually become overwhelmed because they don’t have the means or the desire to get their animals spayed or neutered. So the animals take over, which creates unsafe living conditions for the animals and the people who try to care for them. While this can lead to unintentional suffering, it is not a case where the person is deliberately abusing an animal.
The problem is, Tedisco’s bill still creates a stigma for pet hoarders by placing them on a registry. Even if it has no criminal implications for them, it punishes them in ways that aren’t consistent with what they have done.
This is wrong. Pet hoarders are not violent criminals, and they have a right to a second chance if they get the help they need. By placing them on a registry similar to that of a sex offender, the state is stigmatizing what most now agree is a mental health issue. And the provision that the hoarders receive a mental evaluation and treatment rings a little hollow if that care can’t be consistently provided. Maybe we would be better off requiring caseworkers to regularly visit animal hoarders to make sure they, and their animals, are being well cared for.
At least Albany County gives pet hoarders a second chance. While there is a registry, hoarders can be taken off of it after 10 years.
We know pet hoarding is a serious problem, and we believe all animals deserve a loving home and proper care. But we also believe that people deserve help when they can’t help themselves. It has to work both ways.
