animal hoarding.

jupiterimages I was watering my postage-stamp-sized Brooklyn garden one morning last spring when a white-bibbed cat peeked out from under my azalea bush. As I weeded, the cat napped in the sun, eventually sauntering over to press himself against my ankle. Clearly, this was no skittish street cat. When I was finished, he marched up the steps alongside me, fully expecting to be let inside. That night, I noticed he'd slipped under the gate to the basement and curled up beside the door. After three days of this, I deduced he was either lost or recently deposited on the curb, which meant I had to find him proper shelter. As the cat-allergic owner of two dogs, adopting him myself was not an ...

When you see a cute litter of puppies or a box full of kittens, the desire to keep a couple of dozen of the little critters around is almost overwhelming. Most of us recognize, however, that we don't have the space or the time to attend to large numbers of animals. But then there are the hoarders: People who love animals so much that they can't stop "rescuing" them, even when they have hundreds of cats and dogs in their homes. Animal Planet is launching a new series called CONFESSIONS: Animal Hoarding, which looks into the lives of pet lovers who have a compulsion to possess and control an unmanageable number of animals. The series coordinates interventions by psychologists, animal ...