TV tip leads to animal rescue

Published 5:00 am Friday, June 3, 2011

GRANTS PASS — Unable to deal with the growing number of cats in their home, a Grants Pass couple moved out and turned to a TV show for help.

By the time the crew from Animal Planet’s “Confessions: Animal Hoarding” showed up with the Humane Society to take the menagerie, it had grown to 52 cats, four dogs and three goats.

Executive producer Dan Jackson said Thursday from Vancouver, B.C., that the husband was living in a trailer on the property, feeding the cats that had taken over the house, and the wife had moved in with relatives. He did not identify the couple, who are in their 50s.

None of the cats were spayed or neutered, and their numbers just grew, he said.

“The nature of this phenomenon is the people wall themselves off from the world by creating this hoard of animals,” he said. “Most of them do that because they don’t feel they can trust people, for whatever reason. They can only trust animals.”

“In many cases out there, people haven’t broken any laws and it’s a huge family crisis, but they don’t know what to do about it,” he added. “The only other option these people had was to contact animal control and have them come in and remove all the animals and potentially euthanize them.”

He said the show had the couple’s house cleaned and they were able to move back in. The show on the Grants Pass couple will air on Animal Planet in the new season starting Aug. 24.

Rogue Valley Humane Society manager Margaret Varner said they collected the Animals on Monday and got help in sheltering them from Humane Society chapters in Brookings and Eugene.

Varner said she was surprised to find the animals in relatively good shape. Among the 25 that Rogue Valley Humane Society took, all will require socialization, and some had ear mites, bladder infections and problems with their teeth. But there were no serious conditions.

She said two of the dogs will be going back to the couple.