Confessions: Animal Hoarding on Animal Planet Tonight

The latest show from the producers of A&E's Intervention is coming to Animal Planet. Confessions: Animal Hoarding is a six-part series that takes an in-depth, personal look at animal hoarding through people whose lives have been taken over by dogs, cats, birds and other animals. It's not unlike other shows that take on hoarding, except for one key factor: the animals.

While many of the symptoms and triggers for people who hoard animals are the same as with people who hoard inanimate objects, there's a big difference between having a house that's overrun by animals, who have their own needs, and by stuff that just sits there. For one thing, the animals themselves suffer. Hoarding animals is also inherently an animal welfare and a public health problem. As Animal Planet's website explains: "Whereas all hoarders may have legal and financial problems, as well as medical, social and psychological issues, animal hoarders in particular are at risk of contracting and spreading zoonotic diseases."

In the new book, Stuff: Compulsive Hoarding and the Meaning of Things, authors Randy O. Frost and Gail Steketee dedicate a single chapter to animal hoarding. While more and more research has been done on people who hoard objects, Frost and Steketee point out that studies of people who hoard animals are almost nonexistent.

"Rarely has any information come directly from the people doing the hoarding," write Frost and Steketee. "It is easy to understand why. By the time most animal hoarding cases come to light, the hoarder is in big trouble with the health department, the humane society, the city, and the neighbors. Graphic pictures and personal information have been splashed across the news — hardly an incentive for the hoarder to discuss the case further." Less than 10 percent of animal hoarding cases are resolved cooperatively.

One of the rare sources of information on animal hoarding is the Tufts University Hoarding Animals Research Consortium. Although HARC provides a lot of valuable information, again, it is mostly gathered from researchers, social workers and animal rescuers, not from the perspective of the hoarders themselves.

That's where Confessions: Animal Hoarding is breaking ground. Similar to shows like Intervention or Hoarding: Buried Alive, people have agreed to share their stories on camera.

It's hard not to stigmatize a condition that results in the suffering and neglect of an estimated quarter-million animals each year. But when you're dealing with a rate of relapse of 100 percent without ongoing treatment, setting aside judgment and listening to what the hoarders themselves have to say might be the only hope of breaking the cycle.

The series premieres tonight at 9 p.m. (e.s.t) with an episode following Bonnie, who's had her animals taken away in the past and continues to acquire more, and Don, whose 30 cats have created a health hazard that has driven his wife from their home.

Photo credit: kevindooley