Накопительство животных: проблема и правовые аспекты.

Keeping more domestic pets than can't be cared for

Animal hoarding, sometimes called Noah syndrome, is keeping a higher than usual number of animals as domestic pets without the ability to properly house or care for them, while at the same time denying this inability. Compulsive hoarding can be characterized as a symptom of a mental disorder rather than deliberate cruelty towards animals. Hoarders are deeply attached to their pets and find it extremely difficult to let the pets go. They typically cannot comprehend that they are harming their pets by failing to provide them with proper care. Hoarders tend to believe that they provide the right amount of care for them. The American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals provides a "Hoarding Prevention Team", which works with hoarders to help them attain a manageable and healthy number of pets.

Penalties for failing to provide proper care or medical care to animals under state animal cruelty statutes can include fines, animal forfeiture, the cost of care for the seized animals, and jail time. This case was considered a landmark by the Animal Legal Defense Fund. In addition to jail time, animal forfeiture, and fines, a state, such as California, may allow courts to order psychological counseling at the court's discretion or may require the defendant to undergo anger management, such as the case in Colorado.

Although animal hoarders can be prosecuted under state animal cruelty laws, many scholars maintain that basic animal cruelty laws are inefficient in prosecuting hoarders. Hawaii's law specifically criminalizes hoarding, while depriving an animal of necessary sustenance can also constitute a separate offense of animal cruelty. The hoarding law differs from ordinances that limit the number of pets a person can have because it only prohibits keeping more than fifteen dogs and cats if the owner fails to provide necessary care for the animals and that failure causes injury to the animals or the owner.

Prosecuting animal hoarding cases is "complex, time consuming, and costly; as made evident in the Primrose case, the high cost of caring for animals rescued from hoarders, who often must be cared for at the rescuer's expense, is a huge disincentive for prosecuting these types of cases. Especially since the animal rescue operation may never be compensated for its expenses. Further, as Dr. Gary Patronek explains, " don't really have the tools they need to fully go after these cases and they often don't have the support of other agencies that they need."

The health issues in animal hoarding encompass a variety of concerns related to both individual and public health. Animal hoarding is the cause of many severe health risks that threaten the hoarded animals, individuals living in hoarding residences, and surrounding neighbors.

Due to the harmful effects on the health of the animals involved, animal hoarding is considered a form of cruelty to animals. Malnourishment also leads to increased susceptibility to disease, and the hoarded animals are often in advanced stages of sickness.

Overcrowding also leads to acute animal health problems in hoarding situations. The number of animals found in hoarding cases range from dozens to several hundreds, with extreme cases involving over a thousand animals. Animals are confined to houses, apartments, or trailer homes.

Various other health problems arise from hoarders' neglect of the animals and inability to provide basic care for them. Lack of veterinary attention is notable among these. Hoarders, refusing to acknowledge the deteriorating health conditions of their animals and scared they will be forced to give up custody, often refuse to take their animals to veterinarians. In one case, floors and other surfaces were found to be covered in a six inch layer of feces and garbage.

Another human health issue caused by animal hoarding is the risk of zoonotic diseases. Defined as "human diseases acquired from or transmitted to any other vertebrate animal", zoonotic diseases can often be lethal and in all cases constitute a serious public health concern. Examples of well known zoonotic diseases include bubonic plague, influenza, and rabies. Common domesticated animals constitute a large portion of animals carrying zoonoses, One zoonosis of special concern is toxoplasmosis, which can be transmitted to humans through cat feces or badly prepared meat, and is known to cause severe birth defects or stillbirth in the case of infected pregnant women. The risk of zoonotic diseases is amplified by the possibility of community epidemics.

The problems of self neglect and elder and child abuse are also health problems associated with animal hoarding. Self neglect can be defined as "the inability to provide for oneself the goods or services to meet basic needs", and has been shown to be an "independent risk factor for death". While self neglect is a condition generally associated with the elderly, animal hoarders of any age can and do experience it. rejecting any offers of assistance. Delusional disorder is an effective model in that it offers an explanation of hoarders' apparent blindness to the realities of their situations.

Another model that has been suggested to explain animal hoarding is attachment disorder, which is primarily caused by poor parent child relationships during childhood. It is characterized by an inability to form "close relationships [with other humans] in adulthood".

On the Animal Planet TV series Confessions: Animal Hoarding, friends and family of animal hoarders intervene to offer them support to make a change in the form of psychological help and veterinary care or placement for their pets. In the animated series The Simpsons, animal hoarding is represented by the semi recurring character Crazy Cat Lady Eleanor Abernathy. She is a mentally ill old woman covered by cats, who is often seen speaking in gibberish and throwing cats at people. In Ann Bannon's novel Journey to a Woman, Vega's mother and grandfather own an excessive number of cats and could be considered to be animal hoarders. In webtoon Lookism, an arc featuring an animal hoarder who nabbed both Daniel Park and Johan Song's dogs.