Thursday, April 15, 2010

Collecting Animals

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“Providing care is a pretext. The animals give them a sense of omnipotence, literally a power over life and death. This is not about caring for the animals… it’s about a human need [filled] through the animals.” (Dr. Gary Patronek, leading expert on animal hoarding)

In my last post, I referred to Virginia Robinson as a hoarder. A cursory reflection on that word implies benign or, at the very least, innocuous intentions. But like rampaging cancer cells that ravage a body, animal hoarding consumes the hoarder and, more importantly, destroys the hoarded. In a word, stockpiling animals like so many Precious Moments figurines creates a malignancy that should command more attention than a dismissive shake of the head at the crazy cat lady..." More