Confessions: Animal Hoarding Highlights a Cancer Patient with 21 Pets
The third episode of Confessions: Animal Hoarding continued profiling people who hoard animals, and the effects it has on not only their life, but those around them. This episode featured Robin and Lolette.
Robin is a 53 year old twice-married cancer survivor who lives in a two floor house with her husband and her two home-schooled children. She also lives with 21 pets, including dogs, birds, and a deaf cat. On top of all the animals, Robin is also a actual hoarder of possessions, which causes even more problems. Her animal hoarding started 15 years ago after she was diagnosed with breast cancer and underwent chemotherapy. The treatment left her unable to have anymore children and she compensated by getting more and more animals. There is no law concern with the amount of animals she has, but there is amongst her family. After one of her grandchildren is bit by a dog, her daughter vows to never bring her back to see Robin until she gets rid of some animals. With her husband out of work, money has become an issue. They have not paid rent to the owner of the building, Robin's brother Rory, in over a year. He is losing hundreds of dollars a month in lost income because the money is going to care of the animals. Her family has hit a breaking point and meet with the show's Dr. to discuss the situation. They stage an intervention to address the issue to let Robin know how they feel and that they can no longer continue like this.
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Lolette is a 61 year old woman who has been married to her husband, Russ, for over 30 years. She runs a cat shelter out of her home, currently at over 300 cats. Much like J.D.'s father from last week, Lolette's father didn't like cats or stray animals, and would kill them when they were brought home by her. Her hoarding started after she was married, and rescued one stray cat. Then another. Then another. But with donations dwindling and the number of cats increasing, she can no longer afford to get the cats proper medical treatment or hire a staff to help her care for them. This has led to many of her cats coming down with fatal communicable diseases or serious infections. Because Lolette runs a shelter, she doesn't have to abide by local laws concerning the maximum number of animals she can keep, only the number approved by the local animal control. This causes many problems with her neighbors who frequently report her, prompting a surprise inspection. Based on the visit, she is approved for a maximum of 150 cats. After only adopting one cat out over an entire weekend at a local pet store, they are notified by Animal Control that they are now only permitted to keep 85 cats. Creepy flesh colored beard Psychologist meets with Lollette & her husband, a shelter volunteer, and a local vet to determine how exactly they will remove over 200 cats and get them the help they need.
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