Does Anyone Else Here Severely Dislike "Animal Cops"?

[SweeTeaPie]

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I don't watch this show anymore because I've seen way too many upsetting episodes. And by upsetting, I don't mean "Oh the poor dog", I mean 'These "Animal Cops' are awful!".

Unfortunately, my examples aren't going to be exact because it's been quite a while since I've watched it, but they're filming in Philadelphia now, so it's been brought to my attention once again.

There's one episode which particularly sticks out in my mind as being the worst one. They had found a dog that had basically grown up with a chain around its neck and so the chain was embedded in the dogs neck. THis is, of course, extremely sad. But they performed some major surgeries on it, and after a lot of time and work, were actually ale to recoup. the dog. Then they do a food aggression test. Turns out the poor dog is food aggressive. Of course it is! Wouldn't you be if you grew up tied to a chain without being fed?! Without bothering to rehabilitate the dog, or work with it, they decide right then and there that they're going to destroy it. Why bother rescuing it at all, wasting the vet's time, skills, materials, etc., if you aren't oging to finish the job by at least ATTEMPTING to socialize it.

Number two. Some poor old lady has what they consider to be too many cats. Actually, i've seen people with a LOT more cats than her. She's old, she lives by herself, and quite rankly most of the cats were fairly well taken care of. What do they do? Take every single one away from her. She was so sad and loved her cats so much, it made me cry. What the heck? Why couldn't they have said, you can have one cat as long at you have it spayed or neutered? They make it seem like everyone out there with too many animals is an awful person. Sometimes the poor people really do mean well, and things just get out of control. They need to have more compassion with situations like these and actually try to work with some of these people.

And the latest is one that happened in Philly. There was a small stable in Fairmount Park where some local people would take care of the horses and in turn be able to ride them. The wonderful "Animal ops" come along one day and discover that the horses are DITY! Not underfed, not malnourished, just DIRTY! There is a BIG difference between a dirty horse, and an abused horse. I saw the photos myself, and there was hardly anything wrong with the horses at all. It had rained two nights before and I'm sure their turnouts were probably mud pits, just like ours was! Oh, and apparantly they had piles of manure. Um, of course there were piles of manure, when you take manure out of a stall, you have to put it somewhere! These poor people were at least spending their time in a barn instead of in the streets. Help them out a little maybe; educate them. Don't take their horses away! Now the ARE going to go out into the streets...

Why don't these guys spend some time out with the Amish and their Puppy Mills? Now THERE's animal cruelty for you...

 

[nyanko]

There's one episode which particularly sticks out in my mind as being the worst one. They had found a dog that had basically grown up with a chain around its neck and so the chain was embedded in the dogs neck. THis is, of course, extremely sad. But they performed some major surgeries on it, and after a lot of time and work, were actually ale to recoup. the dog. Then they do a food aggression test. Turns out the poor dog is food aggressive. Of course it is! Wouldn't you be if you grew up tied to a chain without being fed?! Without bothering to rehabilitate the dog, or work with it, they decide right then and there that they're going to destroy it. Why bother rescuing it at all, wasting the vet's time, skills, materials, etc., if you aren't oging to finish the job by at least ATTEMPTING to socialize it.

I doubt they just decided "right then and there" to euthanize the dog. Perhaps that's what you saw on TV, or what was explained in the show, but if they decided not to attempt to re-socialize the dog it was probably due to a number of issues, not just the food aggression alone. Someone must have seen something in the dog that made them believe that it could not be rehabbed. And they absolutely cannot adopt out dangerous/aggressive animals, under any circumstances. As for why they would treat it first, they have no way of knowing what the dog's temperament is going to be like when it's physically better and they wanted to give it a shot. They couldn't very well temperament test it while the collar was still grown into its skin...

Number two. Some poor old lady has what they consider to be too many cats. Actually, i've seen people with a LOT more cats than her. She's old, she lives by herself, and quite rankly most of the cats were fairly well taken care of. What do they do? Take every single one away from her. She was so sad and loved her cats so much, it made me cry. What the heck? Why couldn't they have said, you can have one cat as long at you have it spayed or neutered? They make it seem like everyone out there with too many animals is an awful person. Sometimes the poor people really do mean well, and things just get out of control. They need to have more compassion with situations like these and actually try to work with some of these people.

If you leave her just one she is just going to keep collecting more. Animal hoarding is compulsive behavior, and while I don't doubt that she was sad, if she had a bunch of intact animals in her house and "most" of them were well taken care of (not "all" of them?) then they all need to be removed from her, and she herself needs to get some psychiatric help. She is very likely not in a state to own a pet right now and needs to get herself in order before she can do so. I don't find fault with the AC officers for taking away the cats in the least bit. My sympathy with hoarders is at about zero, beyond knowing that they need psychiatric help, as one of my very first experiences working at an animal shelter was with euthanizing 30 cats and kittens from the house of a hoarder who were near feral and all had diseases.

I don't know anything about horses or the situation you described, though it sounds like there was probably something else going on there too.

You have to keep in mind that for these television shows, things are edited and the whole story isn't always given. I know animal control officers personally, and all of them have said that taking away animals is a last resort situation, and that they would always try to work with the owners first in order to keep the pets in their homes. Only after repeated noncompliance or serious flags (ie a serious hoarder, violation of health codes or flagrant abuse that puts the animal in immediate danger) is seizure of the animals considered.

 

[PrimalMU]

SweetTeaPie, I can't help but feel that you don't have a realistic view regarding some of these situations. As far as the food aggressive dog, there are probably several reasons why they chose to euthanize the dog. Like nyanko mentioned, a dog's temperament cannot be ascertained when the dog is medically unsound. Think about it... I bet you don't act the same when you are sick as you do when you feel fine. Now, you also have to understand that adopting out an aggressive dog would be a HUGE liability issue, even if the dog was rehabilitated. Its just asking for a lawsuit if the dog relapses after its been adopted. Not only that, but rehabilitating a dog would be extremely expensive, and that expense would be added to the already expensive veterinary care the dog was given. Its just not fiscally possible to rehabilitate every animal they come across when they see tens of thousands of animals a year. Its a situation similar to herd health -- you have to look at the bigger picture, not the individual case. If the ASPCA can save 3-4 more adoptable animals by forgoing the expense of rehabilitating one animal, then so be it.

As for the cat hoarder, again I agree with nyanko. This is an actual disease, and by letting the woman keep even just one, they would not be helping her. They took the cats away from her, not just for the cats' sake, but for her own well-being.

 

[jkq202]

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[twelvetigers]

You know, I'm more of a Food Network person myself. Or Discovery.

 

[nyanko]

sweet tea, keep in mind people on this forum usually don't like other people's opinions 😎 haha. I think everyone here thinks they're right all the time, (I am guilty myself sometimes), so if you get a bunch of angry responses, don't get upset or surprised! I can see where this thread could potentially go...

If you can't deal with dissenting opinions, then don't post your own. If you just want people to agree with you then go to a community where your opinions are the prevailing ones (in your case, jkq, PeTA), not one full of many people with different backgrounds and different opinions. Nobody's responses are "angry" and nobody's opinions are "right all the time." They are just that, responses and opinions.

 

[jkq202]

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[jkq202]

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[PrimalMU]

I didn't say people's opinions were "right all the time," just that many people THINK they are.

Well of course people think their opinions are right. If they didn't, they wouldn't have them. It seems kind of silly that someone should, or even could, have an opinion that they themselves didn't believe was correct.

 

[Truth74]

I've seen on the same shows ( I don't remember which animal cops it was. They have so many, now.)how they will send an animal that is borderline aggressive to a rescue organization for training.

I'd like to add that the aspca and hsus are no kill and working to make all shelter organizations no kill. There has to be something majorly wrong, that they can not rehab, in order for a dog to get on the short list for euthanasia. You can do a search yourself on their websites to see the trend and it is going down for both organizations.

No shelter worth its salt wants to euth an animal, but sometimes they have to.
Now animal control or a game warden might just put a dog down because they can.

 

[SweeTeaPie]

Oh good grief, ya'll are so testy these days. And I'll include myself in that lump too, if you like. It was just a curiosity more than anything, no need for everyone to get so up in arms. Sheesh.

And "Cat Hoarding" is a Disease?!?! Come on, don't you think that's pushing it a little? I know Dr. Phil likes to make everyone think that every little neurosis out there is a "disease" and therefore "not their fault", but honestly... give me a break. Too many sociologists out there with nothing else to do.

 

[nyanko]

And "Cat Hoarding" is a Disease?!?! Come on, don't you think that's pushing it a little? I know Dr. Phil likes to make everyone think that every little neurosis out there is a "disease" and therefore "not their fault", but honestly... give me a break. Too many sociologists out there with nothing else to do.

It is a compulsion, which is often a symptom of an underlying mental disease or emotional instability, yes. When a problem like this begins to affect the functioning of your normal life (ie, gets you in trouble with the law!) it moves far enough into "abnormal" territory to become a mental disorder. Most normal people understand when they have reached the limit of animals that they can comfortably accommodate while still being able to financially support them all. It is quite abnormal to continue collecting animals beyond this limit, and into the point where the animals' care and well being is compromised. THAT is what makes it a symptom of a disease.

 

[chordy4]

just my two cents about the hoarding issue...i'd have to agree with nyanko on that one. ANY type of hoarding is akin to a disease, whether it be just a garage/house-full of junk or a houseful of cats. there's something else going on in that person's life that is making them feel the need to keep on "collecting" things, and it's just not healthy.

i think i actually saw the animal cops episode you were referring to regarding the dog and the food aggression. i actually had a little bit of a problem with that myself, not so much because of the time put into rehabilitating the dog, but moreso just the issue of food aggression.

both dogs (same breed but owned at different times) that i grew up with were rather food aggressive, never to the point of biting anyone, but definitely giving a big snarl/growl if you were remotely close to their food. i'm sure that this was somewhat induced by our/my parent's ownership and training, but still, there was never anything we overtly did or didn't do that caused this behavior to manifest. aside from that, both dogs were the sweetest, most loving pets in the world and they meant everything to me as a child. i can't imagine ever getting rid of them or putting them down purely due to the behavior they exhibited over their food.

while i agree with other people that the clip they showed on animal cops was most likely not representative of the efforts they went through to try to behaviorally rehabilitate the dog...it still disheartened me a little bit as the situation was *somewhat* reminiscent to that of my own dogs, and aside from the food aggression, the dog on the show was a a real sweetheart.

i definitely do understand, however, that it's a whole different ballgame with rescued animals that are trying to be rehabilitated and adopted out as opposed to a pet you've had your whole life and have cared for.

(my god i wrote a book!!)

 

[laurafinn]

Animal hoarding is not something I would dismiss out of hand. If you have seen what implications the phenomenon has for affected animals and their caretaker (I use that term loosely) ... yikes. I think its part of our role as soon-to-be veterinarians to be aware of things like hoarding - to advocate not only for the well-being of our animal patients but that of our human clients as well.

A Tufts researcher maintains a comprehensive website about the phenomenon at http://www.tufts.edu/vet/cfa/hoarding/.

The site includes Tips for Veterinarians at http://www.tufts.edu/vet/cfa/hoarding/vettips.htm.


Really, animal hoarding is something most vet students have heard about. Don't be left in the dark!

 

[masterpate]

It is a compulsion, which is often a symptom of an underlying mental disease or emotional instability, yes. When a problem like this begins to affect the functioning of your normal life (ie, gets you in trouble with the law!) it moves far enough into "abnormal" territory to become a mental disorder. Most normal people understand when they have reached the limit of animals that they can comfortably accommodate while still being able to financially support them all. It is quite abnormal to continue collecting animals beyond this limit, and into the point where the animals' care and well being is compromised. THAT is what makes it a symptom of a disease.

while animal hoarding might be seen as a compulsion, but i don't think that just because something can get you into the trouble with hte law makes it wrong. I know plenty of people, myself included, that have enough animals that we would be considered hoarders. My veterinarian actually has well over 50 pets. However, like mine, they are all extremely well taken care of. In both cases, most were even rescued and rehabiliated, but we have kept them instead of adopting them out into the same bad care. (we rescue birds personally)
Do we have a disease? No. Unless you count kindness as a disease.
Are we breaking the law? well no, but thats only because of the area we live in.

Now this cat lady, may not have been updating them on shots or feeding them the best diet or cleaning their litter pans as often as she should have been. but when does bad ownership cross the line into abuse and neglect? Just because someone doesn't take perfect care of an animal doesn't mean they should all be taken away from them does it? I've had points in my life where I have had to make sacrifices, such as waiting a month to take my dogs to get shots, or having them miss a meal because I forgot to get dog food the day before, but is that abusing them?

 

[PrimalMU]

while animal hoarding might be seen as a compulsion, but i don't think that just because something can get you into the trouble with hte law makes it wrong. I know plenty of people, myself included, that have enough animals that we would be considered hoarders. My veterinarian actually has well over 50 pets. However, like mine, they are all extremely well taken care of. In both cases, most were even rescued and rehabiliated, but we have kept them instead of adopting them out into the same bad care. (we rescue birds personally)
Do we have a disease? No. Unless you count kindness as a disease.
Are we breaking the law? well no, but thats only because of the area we live in.

Now this cat lady, may not have been updating them on shots or feeding them the best diet or cleaning their litter pans as often as she should have been. but when does bad ownership cross the line into abuse and neglect? Just because someone doesn't take perfect care of an animal doesn't mean they should all be taken away from them does it? I've had points in my life where I have had to make sacrifices, such as waiting a month to take my dogs to get shots, or having them miss a meal because I forgot to get dog food the day before, but is that abusing them?

As mentioned before, animal hoarding is indicative of a deeper underlying mental problem. Its a symptom. Thats not to say that everyone who has X or more pets is an animal hoarder, as there are always going to be people who have a lot of pets and actually have the means to take care of them. But one of the biggest issues with animal hoarders is that many of them end up sacrificing their own well-being in order to keep the animals. And all too often, even by doing this, the animals are still not cared for very well. I assure you that look for certain psychological clues before going as far as taking the animals away. On these shows, they very often only show the last visit; most of the time the officers have been out to the location several times in an attempt to fix the situation witout resorting to removing the animals. Unfortunately, with hoarders, this often isn't possible.

 

[nyanko]

I know plenty of people, myself included, that have enough animals that we would be considered hoarders. My veterinarian actually has well over 50 pets. However, like mine, they are all extremely well taken care of. In both cases, most were even rescued and rehabiliated, but we have kept them instead of adopting them out into the same bad care. (we rescue birds personally)

Did you happen to even read what I wrote?

Let me bold the parts that make your response irrelevant:

It is a compulsion, which is often a symptom of an underlying mental disease or emotional instability, yes. When a problem like this begins to affect the functioning of your normal life (ie, gets you in trouble with the law!) it moves far enough into "abnormal" territory to become a mental disorder. Most normal people understand when they have reached the limit of animals that they can comfortably accommodate while still being able to financially support them all. It is quite abnormal to continue collecting animals beyond this limit, and into the point where the animals' care and well being is compromised. THAT is what makes it a symptom of a disease.

If this is not having an adverse affect on your life, and you can financially support all of your animals, then great, continue. However, this is not the case for the people who are classified as animal hoarders. It is not a concrete number of animals, it is the inability to care for the animals in a way that is consistent with current veterinary medicine's capacity to care for them. Do I consider not getting them spayed and neutered and letting them wantonly breed with each other to be neglect? Yes, I do. It's extremely irresponsible and needs to be stopped. Now as I said I haven't seen the exact situation that the OP was talking about, but if the officers were compelled to remove all of the cats, there must have been something going on in there that warranted it.

Getting into trouble with the law isn't the only adverse effect that animal hoarding can have on your life. Social alienation and rejection can often be both effects and causes of this behavior. Who wants to visit a house that smells of intact male cat urine all the time? Even if you are trying to take care of all of the animals, it's an immense financial burden that could even translate into not being able to pay your bills on time or not being able to properly make ends meet for yourself, which is obviously affecting your life as well.

Now this cat lady, may not have been updating them on shots or feeding them the best diet or cleaning their litter pans as often as she should have been. but when does bad ownership cross the line into abuse and neglect? Just because someone doesn't take perfect care of an animal doesn't mean they should all be taken away from them does it? I've had points in my life where I have had to make sacrifices, such as waiting a month to take my dogs to get shots, or having them miss a meal because I forgot to get dog food the day before, but is that abusing them?

You seem to be taking this rather personally. Perhaps you should see a therapist. This wasn't targeted towards you, I didn't put a hardline # of animals and I don't think anyone ever should. When it begins to affect the animals' well being (they are diseased, intact, malnourished and/or becoming feral because you don't have enough time or money to spend on all of them, etc) or your own well being (you are on an animal cops show, can't afford to eat or pay your own bills, your friends have written you off as 'crazy dog/cat lady', you're in trouble with the law, etc) that's when it is a problem.

Oh and thanks for the links laurafinn, it's good to see that this is being taken seriously and that research is going into it. 🙂

 

[Hobiecat1642]

"(you are on an animal cops show, can't afford to eat or pay your own bills, your friends have written you off as 'crazy dog/cat lady', you're in trouble with the law, etc) that's when it is a problem."

That's very funny, nyanko! I agree--when you see yourself on animal cops, that's not a good sign!

I've read the previous responses and I don't think anyone here is trying to make this a personal argument. I've met animal hoarders, and while I don't pretend to be a psychologist and I remind myself that I'm not there to judge them, much of the time it's not a good situation for the animals. Also, I've seen people with two animals who fail utterly and completely to care for even those two. I've also met a woman who had 20 animals at one point and took very good care of them and eventually found homes for many. So it can go both ways. I think that by and large, the officers on animal cops and related shows are trying to do the right thing--I don't always agree with them, and I think that the shows are edited oddly at times, however, I don't think there are enough officers with the power/jurisdiction to investigate complaints and seize animals. Sadly, I think what we see on those episodes is only the tip of the iceberg in regards to the animals out there who are being neglected/abused.

 

[destiny1325]

I was watching an episode of animal cops miami where a dog had been hit by a car. When HLE came out to get the dog, she claimed that because it didnt have tags or a chip, the dog would have to be euthanized. She then euthanized the dog in the truck before ever taking it to the humane society. She was talking about how it was hard because the dog seemed like it was somebody's pet and that she was angry about it not having tags etc. Does anybody know why this was done? Does the Miami humane society not have the funds to rehabilitate those types of injuries? Why couldn't they have at least kept the dog a couple of days to see if an owner came forward? I was just really confused because the dog seemed very friendly, it did not get the chance to be seen by a vet, and the officer made a point of saying that it was being euthanized because it had no ID on it.

 

[BrumleyVet]

Talk about a heated discussion!!

I can't watch Animal Cops. Then again, Forensic Files, CSI, and Cops are also off the list. I with twelvetigers and watch Food Network!

The editing in these "reality" shows is intended to keep viewers watching, not so much for projecting the truth.

I work for a non-prof spay/neuter clinic. I personally know of a hoarder who tells tells us that she is a "rescue". Yes, at least the animals are fixed, but she now has a legal excuse to have way too many, and keep collecting! See what happened to one here in town last week.
http://www.krem.com/topstories/stories/krem2_080108_catsseized.5e3ef70.html

 

[cozycleo]

I have a hard time judging the people on Animal Cops because their job has to be so gut-wrenchingly hard. I was told that in the Minneapolis/St. Paul Metro area, the Humane Society has two animal investigators. Two! They field over 3,000 calls a year between the two of them.

I can only imagine how difficult it can be to make those hard decisions in a job like that.