Early intervention, mental health support, and community education can prevent the development of animal hoarding and protect both animals and people.
Animal hoarding is both an animal welfare crisis and a mental health crisis that requires coordinated responses. Animals in hoarding situations suffer from overcrowding, malnutrition, disease, and lack of socialization. Prevention is far more effective than crisis response both for animal welfare and hoarder welfare. Communities can develop early intervention programs that connect people showing early signs of accumulating too many animals with mental health support before crisis develops. Cross-professional training for veterinarians, social workers, and animal control officers enables earlier identification and more effective intervention.