Beware of the dog (and cat) hoarder

[Crossfire Bulldogs]

With no state regulation, animal collectors run wild
Times Herald-Record By Victor Whitman

On animal control issues, Bethel's Animal Control Officer Henni Anker is the law in the fifth-largest town in Sullivan County. But she also runs an illegal animal rescue operation at her home on Gabriel Road. She owns cats, dogs, geese, donkeys, birds. She owns a bobcat that paces back and forth in a run that's visible from the road.

The town of Bethel has no record of the facility.

Anker, the authority in Bethel, is breaking the town's kennel law (she has no kennel license).

She is also breaking the state's dog-licensing law that she is paid $13,400 annually to enforce (she has licensed only four dogs in her name with the town but has several more tied outside).

At least, Anker was breaking these laws last month, when a reporter and photographer stood outside her locked gate.

By all accounts, nobody loves animals more than Henni Anker does. She encourages everyone she sees to get their pets spayed and neutered. She's working with other dog control officers, seeking to build a new shelter in Sullivan County. She is a licensed wildlife rehabilitator.

She also has been fired twice as the shelter manager of the SPCA in Rock Hill, during that organization's frequent internal battles. SPCA officials have called Anker a hoarder, someone who can't stop herself from acquiring more and more animals.

Is Anker good? Bad? A hero? A hoarder?

What is she?

This is the problem.

Henni Anker is unregulated. So are many other animal rescues that take donations of food, vet care and cash and care for sometimes hundreds of cats, dogs and other animals. The largest animal rescue in our area, a shelter with a $300,000 annual budget and 300 cats and dogs, retired carriage horses from New York and other animals — Pets Alive in Middletown — is unregulated.

State inspectors never step inside. Facilities without any municipal contracts to accept stray dogs aren't required to keep records of their activities. Nor are they held to any standard of cleanliness or quality of care beyond the cruelty statutes. Those statutes permit owners to keep a dog or cat in a cage for its entire life.



According to the Orange County Sheriff's Department, Pets Alive saves animals and finds homes for them, a legitimate rescue shelter.

But what about the late Jill Konove, who was known in western Sullivan County as the Cat Woman of Callicoon Center? For years, she was considered something of an eccentric folk hero in her town.

She lived with 90 dogs and fed scores of feral cats, rats and raccoons: a hero to some.

But when Konove was hospitalized in January 2004, Callicoon was left with the task of clearing and bulldozing three buildings. Feces was piled 3 feet high in the rooms. Dogs had taken over three houses, killed another dog and were consuming it; it was a house of horrors. The SPCA had to find homes for hundreds of dogs and cats, find other shelters to take some of the animals or kill them. Faced with this problem, the town just let Konove be for years.

"She was back in the middle of nowhere," Callicoon Supervisor Gregg Semenetz said. "It was one of those 'You don't bother us, we won't bother you.'"

What about what has been going on at Brittman Road in Bethel?

Sandra Bauernfeind, 70, a retired teacher and the former chairwoman of Sullivan County's Conservative Party, has at least 30 lhasa apsos — a shaggy, small breed of dog — living with her in a ranch home. She says she once bred the animals. Once, she had more than 60. She also feeds about 80 feral cats, which live and breed in the woods by her home.

What about Gloria Smith, another elderly woman who lives in Cochecton and who just bought a marble tombstone marking the graves of dogs that were incinerated in their cages stacked in her kitchen when a fire broke out in her home?

Sullivan County is a case study in why the law needs to be changed to provide more state oversight, not only of private shelters but of a county's animal control system.

In New York, it is left to the smallest unit of government to deal with the problems. Generally, town dog control officers, municipal cops and sheriff's deputies enforce the statutes under Ag and Markets law. In Sullivan, animal control is, with few exceptions, an afterthought — a history of failure.

Sullivan County has no stable nonprofit shelter. Most of the towns have no facilities, have shunned the SPCA because of its frequent management changes and ship their dogs to Port Jervis and Middletown.

The SPCA has been under investigation by the sheriff's department for mismanagement at the shelter in Rock Hill and for seizing animals without authority. Last week, Sullivan County Manager David Fanslau announced that the county was severing all ties with the agency and would not pay a $16,650 bill for services. Instead of using the SPCA, the county plans to ship all the dogs seized in cruelty cases to Liberty's kennel, which has space for eight dogs.



Once again, county officials blame the SPCA. All this, however, masks a bigger problem. The SPCA, as a private nonprofit, is not obligated to do anything for the county or the towns. By state law, animal control is the local government's responsibility. A town or city must have a place to put stray dogs or dogs seized under the cruelty statutes. A municipality must build its own kennel or contract with a nonprofit agency, like the SPCA, to take the dogs.

What about the towns? Eight of Sullivan's 15 towns have animal control budgets of $10,000 or less. Of these towns, only four towns — Liberty, Bethel, Neversink and Fallsburg — have kennels. These municipal kennels have room for about 26 dogs. This statistic is worth repeating. That's space for 26 dogs in all of Sullivan's municipal kennels.

Confronted with a house-of-horrors situation with hundreds of dogs and cats living in feces, where are the facilities to put the animals? Sullivan's SPCA has hung around all these years, a barely functioning, local embarrassment, for this reason. There is no alternative.

With no infrastructure and no state oversight, the system in Sullivan County frequently breaks down.

Take the case of Gloria Smith. Smith, a retired nurse from New York City living in Cochecton, made headlines in this paper and on national news networks this year. In May, her home burned down, killing at least 16 dogs and 3 dozen cats kept in cages in the home and the cellar.

Under a deal with Cochecton, Smith can keep 36 dogs until her shelter is phased out in 2008 by zoning regulations. And yet, Smith has been thumbing her nose at the town's regulations for years.

She has 60 surviving dogs and several dozen cats and has added to the tally since the fire.

The dogs and cats are kept in cages; the cats stacked in small, box cages under a tarp; the dogs in runs.

Cochecton has battled Smith for 10 years in various lawsuits that claim she is running an illegal shelter. And yet, Smith also has a town-issued kennel license, has 501c3 nonprofit status with the feds under the name "Bennies Buddies." She legally can take donations. A muddy situation.

What is clear is that Smith owns an enormous number of dogs and cats that live in runs, old trailers and cages under a tarp; that Smith has no house or main building to put her animals in during the winter, that she is taking still more animals in and that no state inspector ever will step anywhere near her shelter.

And what about Henni Anker, the law in Bethel?

Standing near her town's official dog-pound van parked by her trailer, Anker refused to allow a photographer past her gate. She declined an interview.

She wouldn't provide any information about the animal shelter at her home, where she keeps her animals, how many she has or in what condition she keeps them.



She doesn't have to.


Jessica Chittenden is the spokeswoman for the state Department of Agriculture & Markets.


Q: State inspectors do no inspections of private animal shelters and rescue organizations?

A: Correct

State inspectors have never inspected, for example, Pets Alive in Middletown, Bennie's Buddies in Cochecton or the now-closed Lazarian Society in Cochecton in Sullivan County?

Unless they contracted with a municipality or was under inspection as a pet dealer, we would not inspect them. We do annual inspections of all facilities which provide shelter for dogs seized under the state dog-licensing laws.

The state keeps no database of adoption and euthanasia records?

Correct.

State inspectors check the shelters to see if those records are kept?

State inspectors also verify that all the animals in a facility (with a municipal contract to accept stray animals) have a rabies shot.

Dogs over four months of age being adopted must have rabies shots. There are also standards for cleanliness and the care of animals that have to be met.

Can a shelter with a municipal contract refuse to show the public their records?

There is nothing in Agriculture and Markets law which requires public disclosure of shelter records.

Sara Whalen is executive director of Pets Alive in Middletown.


Many rural communities don't have the means or the willpower to enforce their zoning laws. Should there be more state oversight, a defined set of standards of private shelters generally?

I think the state should oversee record keeping for sure — every animal in any shelter, rescue or sanctuary should have current records of vaccines and proof that they have been seen by a veterinarian. I also think that the state should make sure the animals have clean, safe and temperature-regulated accommodations "¦.

Your argument that the local governments have no money makes no sense. There are already laws that govern their role, and if they are not enforcing them (it takes no money to send an animal control officer to check on the number of animals someone has, or to call the sheriff if there is a cruelty complaint) then there is no hope for the animals in those towns.

Money for the animal control officer is mandated to come from a separate budget line which is funded by dog license fees. Many towns pay them out of the general fund. It would be in the best interest of the towns to make sure that as many dogs were licensed as possible.

Samantha Mullen is regional program coordinator of the Humane Society of the United States Mid-Atlantic Region.


Why should we care if a person chooses to acquire a huge amount of animals?

Proper care of a large number of animals requires enormous resources. Lacking such resources, a person trying maintain numerous animals will reach a point where some, if not all of them, will suffer from serious neglect. Such suffering can be massive and long-term, especially if it remains undiscovered by local authorities.

In New York, how easy is it to open an animal shelter?

Frankly, it is far too easy. In New York state, anyone can claim to operate an animal shelter, even if the facility is a private home or a dilapidated structure.

At present, there is no mandated oversight of private shelters, although New York State Department of Agriculture and Markets inspectors do have access to those that contract with municipalities for housing and care of stray dogs.

Many inadequate shelters are operated by individuals or groups who find themselves overwhelmed with burdensome expenses and other obligations associated with the proper care of animals.

How can a person distinguish between an animal hoarder and a private rescue organization?

An animal rescue organization's primary goals are to maintain animals in clean, healthful, safe and comfortable conditions, and to prevent them from suffering. Animal hoarders almost never acknowledge when animals in their custody are emaciated, filthy, ill, injured, matted to the point of immobility or depressed.

Are New York's laws in line with those around the country?

Several states have enacted laws and regulations establishing specific standards for animal-care facilities. New York has no such laws, so when law enforcement personnel are called upon to investigate complaints, statutes addressing cruelty to animals and code violations are typically the types of charges filed.

Linda Maresca is director of the Humane Society of Middletown.


If people are caring for lots of animals, should they be inspected?

Yes. It's very easy to become overwhelmed by the sheer numbers of unwanted animals. Sometimes when people start out as rescuers they become collectors.

If so, who should do the inspections?

The same state inspectors that govern humane societies, pet shops, and breeding and boarding facilities.

Why?

The Agriculture and Markets laws follow strict guidelines for the care and sheltering of these animals. It becomes very difficult for rescuers to say no to homeless and unwanted animals, making it very easy to become collectors. Monitoring is a way of protecting not only these animals but the people that donate their lives to these pets. A reporter's confession
Let me tell you why I'm a big hypocrite. I've been breaking the law for months.

I own two dogs, my pals, my 1-year-old yellow Lab with a red streak on his back named Red and a beagle mix named Chancey.

I've owned Red since he was a puppy. I adopted Chancey from the SPCA a few months ago.

She'd been tied to a tree behind the Bank of New York in Monticello and was full of worms, emaciated, her ears chewed up by black flies. Now, she's half Red's size and takes him easily in their play fights.

Red was neutered; Chancey was spayed. Both are up to date on their shots. So far, so good.

But the fact is, I never licensed them with the town of Neversink. And aside from being against the law, that's bad for this reason: If Chancey or Red ever ran away, unless the dogs were licensed, no one would know where their home was. In towns where the system runs properly, the town imposes a local licensing fee to help pay for the cost of animal control and lessen the burden on other taxpayers.

So, by the time you read this, I promise I will have gotten my dogs licensed.

You should, too. Hoarding has medical roots
Animal hoarding is a complex medical condition that is only starting to be fully understood.

Often, a hoarder begins as a generous person who wants to help animals.

That impetus escalates into hoarding when the person ends up with more animals than he or she can maintain.

Towns tend to ignore hoarders, because, at least in the short run, the hoarder keeps and maintains animals the town can't afford to keep.

But a number of studies suggest that animal hoarders do more harm than good to a community and the animals they own.

First, hoarders often keep animals in filthy, overcrowded conditions. Hoarders continue to add more and more animals, but will ignore the worsening conditions.

In some cases, a hoarder's children also live in these filthy conditions.

Hoarders sometimes bring in animals from other areas, and with them, potentially, illness and disease new to the community.

A hoarder's animals are often not vaccinated, groomed or given adequate food or veterinary care. The hoarder often makes neighborhood problems worse by, for example, feeding feral cats.

Hoarders sometimes take donations of cash, food and veterinary care, sucking resources from legitimate shelters.

A hoarder is usually a one-person show. So when that person gets overwhelmed, gets charged for animal cruelty or dies, a community must deal with their animals.

Often, most of the surviving animals are euthanized.

According to Randy Frost, author of "People Who Hoard Animals," an April 2000 article in the Psychiatric Times, there is almost no psychiatric literature on animal hoarders.

Frost could find only one case study. In it, the authors interviewed multiple-pet owners about whom complaints had been lodged.

Most of those studied collected dogs or cats.

Findings included:

Men more often collected dogs, and women more often collected cats.

Nearly two-thirds of the collectors were women.

Seventy percent were unmarried.

Many animal hoarders hoarded inanimate objects, too.

Dead or sick animals were discovered in 80 percent of reported cases, yet in nearly 60 percent of cases, the hoarder would not acknowledge the problem.

In 69 percent of cases, animal feces and urine accumulated in human living areas.

In more than 25 percent of cases, hoarders' beds were soiled with feces or urine.

In a significant number of cases, the hoarders' own homes lacked working plumbing, cooking facilities, heat, electricity or a combination of utilities.