The reality show even I can't watch -

"Confessions: Animal Hoarders" on Animal Planet.


The other night, I settled in for some quality *cough* TV viewing: Back-to-back episodes of Animal Hoarders.


The first show started, and it was all about this woman who lived in a trailer with fifteen cats and


ninety-seven dogs. In a trailer.


It was filthy. It was disgusting. Those dogs were pooping and peeing everyplace, and lots of them were crammed into cages, and the cats were practically walking on the ceilings trying to get away from the dogs, and


I couldn't watch it. I just couldn't.


Because you know what's gonna happen: The woman's relatives will stage an intervention, and she'll agree to give up most of the dogs, if she can only keep one or two or twelve, and they'll get the trailer all cleaned up, and you know damn well that if the cameras went back a month or two later, she'd have the place filled up again with dogs and cats and poop and pee.


Look, I don't pretend to know what's wrong with these people, but I just don't see how putting them on national tv is doing any good, particularly since from what I've read about hoarding, there doesn't really seem to be any cure for it. You just go in every once in a while with a hazmat unit, scrape the shit off the walls, try to get some of the animals new homes so they have some kind of a chance at a decent life, and wait for it to cycle up again.


I can't watch it. It makes me angry, that someone could possibly think they were doing those animals a favor, somehow saving them, by cramming them into filthy, grossly overcrowded conditions, and it makes me sad for the animals.

I mean, why can't those people just volunteer at shelters, for Pete's sake? They could be around all the animals they wanted, and they'd actually be doing some good, instead of turning their home into a giant crap pile.

Jeez.