Tragic Pattern of ‘Animal Collectors’

When authorities investigated a Van Nuys home that housed an “animal rescue shelter” earlier this month, they said they found rooms smeared with feces and urine, emaciated cats and dead animals stuffed in shopping bags in the closets and under furniture.

By the end of the day, Animal Services officials said they recovered 28 dogs and 589 cats, including nine already dead and 39 so severely diseased they had to be killed. The discovery, believed to be a record, underscores what animal control officials describe as the growing problem of people who feel a need to collect many animals they cannot care for.

“Unfortunately, animal shelter professionals are familiar with this type of situation,” said Gini Barrett, director of the American Humane Assn.’s Western Regional Office in Encino. “The tragic gross neglect caused by ‘animal collectors’ is a common type of cruelty case.”

“Collectors exist in almost every community, large or small, rural or urban,” Barrett said. “They are in a state of denial that prevents them from seeing the filth or understanding their animals are sick, dying or dead. They need help.”

Barrett urged residents to contact their local animal control agency if they suspect a neighbor is an animal collector. Although collectors are sometimes difficult to identify because they usually function well in society, there are some characteristics that they share in common, she said, offering the following indicators:

* Collectors tend to live alone, with few or no close relationships. They are often very articulate and are considered intelligent, though perhaps eccentric.

* They have an unusual skill for attracting sympathy, picturing themselves as humanitarians, no matter how hungry and dirty animals may be in their care.

* They have a need to have many animals and also amass large collections of other items too.

* They will often refuse assistance from animal care agencies, such as food, help with cleanup or adoption services, and will stubbornly refuse to part with any of their animals, even dead ones.

* Without psychiatric help they will often begin collecting animals again as soon as they are able, even after being convicted of animal cruelty.

Last week, officials of Los Angeles Animal Services submitted a series of proposed animal cruelty charges against Doris Romeo, operator of the Van Nuys shelter, and Charlyne Anderson, who claimed ownership of many of the animals, to the Los Angeles city attorney’s office for review.

The charges include animal cruelty, lack of proper care for animals, no kennel permit, maintaining dogs without licenses, and failure to provide rabies vaccinations.

For her part, Romeo contends her nonprofit Pets for Life operation, which she launched in 1990, is well kept, and the animals properly cared for. She has said she has been unable to obtain a kennel permit from the city because of a zoning restriction.

In an unrelated case in April, Animal Services officials impounded 45 cats, three dogs and a bird from the Tarzana home of Fleeta Kovanda, who was found to be in possession of 15 additional cats in May. The new cats did not appear to be ill and were not impounded.

Kovanda was issued a notice to comply with a city law that does not allow residents to own more than three dogs and three cats in one household without a permit.