Topic : 03/07 When Too Much is ... Too Much

There may be no way to settle the question of how many cats are too many.  BUT PLEASE FOLKS.  Didn't anyone else hear this couple talking about having another baby as a bribe/reward or some such sick thing?  No matter what miracle cure might get this mess cleaned up, these folks have NO BUSINESS bringing another child into the world.  Can there really be so many people who believe cats are so much more important than human babies?

At the least this game of theirs is a sign of serious emotional immaturity, which is very difficult if not impossible to cure. This is not the problem they asked for help with, but they did talk about it. Everyone needs to reconsider the priorities here. 

Well, you certainly have a point of sorts, but given that the vast majority of professional help is still directed at humans, and given the general unreliability of the species anyhow, I for one will stick with the animals here as I do everywhere else.  After all, the health and welfare of TWO HUNDRED living creatures in the hands of a woman with a marked psychiatric disorder is rather, uh, an attention-grabber, esp to animal-lovers or people actually involved in the animal welfare trade. 

And Dr. Phil was the one who put that story on the air because the hoarder topic was of interest to him and because he apparently wanted to highlight two radically different manifestations of the syndrome..  He probably expected a split in focus on the two stories, being the kind of guy who seems rarely if ever any more caught off guard by much, let alone by responses to his shows here.

BUT, that said, i like babies too, and since i saved the episode,  I'll go watch that other story.  never did, and see if i agree with you that the case is so extreme that they don't get to have any more babies before they clean up their act.

On the surface, that would seem an extreme position, tho..  Babies don't take up that much room, and the prospect of one arriving in 9 months may be the very inspiration they need to get off the dime about their mess.  Not that I would at all advocate having babies for purposes of solving some unrelated problem....

:)

patjacobs

Pardon me, i misconstrued your remark.  It was the bribe/reward for cleaning up aspect of this that set you off. 

Perhaps the language used, and i will watch that segment, was not really revealing of  purpose, but just sloppy,  so much use of it is these days, but let me see if their overall behavior reflects the kind of immaturity that the remark at face value implies.

iI will tell you one thing, tho - my extremely mature, responsible, and morally upright parents had a strange conversation early in 1934.

Mother: "Shall we have a baby this year or get a new car?

Father: "A new car."

This was of course a fiscal decision as much as anything else, health insurance being young or non-existant depending.  They had my brother the next year.

:)

As an avid believer in Dr. Phil, who takes his word as gospel, for the first time ever he has dissappointed me in his reaction to Kristy the cat lover.  Everyone needs a passion in life and if cats are her passion, so be it.  She is doing a wonderful thing giving these cats a home, availing her 10 acres of land to cats who would otherwise be strays, out dying or being killed in the wild, or living in cages or euthenized at other shelters.  Her cats are obviously happy and well cared for under her care.  They are fed well, she provides shots and veteranary care, gets them fixed, and they have room to roam and someone who cares..what more could a cat want.  And it was apparent Kristy still manages to keep her own home clean and orderly, the cats have not taken over or destroyed her space, she just loves to share it with them.  I've seen houses with 1 or 2 cats where litter boxes are overflowing and often not used and the smells have taken over their homes, and Kristy's home did not appear that way even with 200 cats.  And with 10 acres and a fence enclosing it, I cannot believe the smell or the cats would pose a problem to neighbors...sounds more like a personal grudge.  It is obvious Kristy is not just hoarding cats, she truly cares about them and is doing everything right by them. 

For someone like Kristy who is so devoted to such a wonderful mission, I would have thought Dr. Phil would have seen the good she has to offer and he would have offered her whatever assistance is needed in getting her set up as a true sanctuary where she could legally continue her mission.   Are these cats not far better off with her than destroyed or kept in cages, as they will be if she gets shut down.  If Dr. Phil was not wlling to help Kristy, I hope someone out there who viewed the show can help her out...I wish I could. 

I realize this show was a repeat, but I still must comment.  I'm a volunteer for our local animal shelter and refer to myself as a CAT-holic.  People think I'm crazy with 5 cats.  As a cat lover I can

understand this lady spending so much time with the cats.  There are many days that I prefer

MY cats to people.  I was glad to hear that the cats were all spayed/neutered and had their

shots, but this still doesn't mean she is properly caring for 200 cats.  First of all, a licensed

cat shelter would not have 200 cats running loose where ever they cared to go.  Ideally, there

would be several, large completely enclosed areas to keep them contained with access to

indoor shelter.  With 200 cats running willy nilly all over 10 acres, they can not be monitored

properly to be sure they are having no problems with eating, that they are getting enough to

eat and that they aren't having any kidney or bowel problems.  They are also a free meal for predators such as hawks, owls, and fishercats, which with being so busy accusing her neighbors of making her cats disappear, these predators probably never crossed her mind. 

You, also, cannot give each and every single one of 200 cats the time, attention and affection

they deserve and have a right to.  So, while she may be doing a good thing by rescuing these cats, she isn't doing them any favors by keeping 200 cats from having their own loving homes.  Where I live, the cats would have been taken away from her long before this, but unless they were fatally ill or were unadoptable because of a serious, contagious illness, they would not be euthanized.

I agree that these people probably have no business bringing another baby into the world OR that house.  They would just lose the kid in that mess.  But there are many people on this planet that have no business bringing babies into this world.  That is why there are foster homes and adoptive parents.  Unfortunately, once the child comes into the world, it's too late to say "Oops! Mistake!".  You can't return it and get your money back.

But to answer your question, there are people put on this earth to worry about what human babies have  endured because of "human" beings and there is another group put on this earth to worry about what animals have endured because of "human" beings.  And since there

are many more people worrying about human babies than furry babies, to some of us cats ARE

more important than human babies.

From the way you worded it, my guess is that you are no lover of cats and that you look at pets as disposable possessions rather a member of the family and a lifelong committment.

I don't know what the background to this person's problem is, but I did hear a mention of "kids" in the conversation and "2 jobs" in another part of the conversation, so it's possible this lady may be stressed and stretched to the point of not being able or not having been able to keep things tidy.

Anyway, from having spent a five year period working full time,  taking evening classes, volunteering for our local animal shelter and having to run back and forth to and be the person responsible for a mother in a nursing home, I know what it's like to not have time or energy left to do much else, all while trying to deal with depression that you are in denial about and don't have the time to deal with anyway.  To get behind and have a house that looks close to that one and to feel so overwhelmed by it that you have no idea where to even begin. 

I don't have a problem throwing things away, I just a problem, sometimes, with what is involved in taking a pile of stuff, sorting through it and figuring out how to deal with each piece in that pile.  And I'm surprised Dr. Phil didn't ask questions about what had been going on in her life to see if she had been dealing with anything that might cause abnormal stress and/or depression. 

I doubt that there is a true, no-kill shelter out there.  I volunteer for a no-kill shelter.  No-kill unless the animal is exceptionally ill and the bad outweighs the good.  If necessary, we even put the animals in foster homes, just to give them a break from cages and/or being a round so many other animals.  BUT...given a choice, I would rather see an animal euthanized that be an abused or neglected animal.

I've come across another way that the no-kill shelter gets around the issue of no-kill.  This is a different shelter from the one where I volunteer and just over the state line.  They simply euthanize what they consider unadoptable animals without ever signing them into the shelter to

begin with.  That way, they get around the record keeping of having accepted an animal as adoptable, then euthanizing it later.

I was hoping to find some help here on the message board concerning the hording of items minus the cats issues.

I have many of the same issues as the woman that collected everything from jars to papers.

Please help me find the area where I can get help with that type of hoarding.  I only have one dog and no cats.  Would really like to get my life back.

Amber

Hi Amber,

Congratulations to you for seeking help for this! 

First I would like to recommend visiting the Obsessive Compulsive Foundation's Hoarding website to learn more about Hoarding.  http://www.ocfoundation.org/hoarding/

You will see when going there, that Compulsive Hoarding is extremely complicated and there are no  simple fixes, i.e.- "just throwing it out". It takes work, but if you are motivated to change, it can happen!  The suggested treatment for it is with cognitive behavioral therapy with exposure and response prevention.  Support groups have been found to also be very helpful (and cheaper) and you can find some listed at the OCDF website under their "Support Groups" page. 

Those groups fill up fast, don't get discouraged, here are some others:

Messiness and Hoarding Yahoo Group:

http://health.groups.yahoo.com/group/Messiness-and-Hoarding/?yguid=204497097

Squalor Survivors:

http://squalorsurvivors.com/community/

I hope this helps some.  Good luck in journey!

Donna

childrenofhoarders.com