Vets the frontline against animal hoarding

Vets are being encouraged to become the new frontline in the battle against animal hoarding.

The RSPCA will use a major veterinary conference underway in Brisbane to urge vets to play their part in identifying animal hoarders, or people at risk of animal hoarding.

Dr Mandy Paterson, from the RSPCA, says animal hoarding is a recognised psychiatric condition most common in socially isolated people.

Hoarders are more likely to be female, and middle-aged or older, be unemployed or on a pension, and resistant to seeking help or treatment.

Cats and dogs are most commonly hoarded, but the RSPCA has also seen incidents involving rodents, birds and even horses.

Dr Paterson says hoarded animals almost always have health problems, and the hoarders themselves typically live in squalid conditions, surrounded by other hoarded items, including garbage.

"A recent study of animal hoarding in NSW found that in every hoarding case the animals required veterinary treatment and suffered from a range of inflammatory, infectious and nutritional diseases and the majority were underweight," she says.

"In 41.5 per cent of cases, dead bodies were found."

Dr Paterson says vets are well placed to identify early stage hoarders, when intervention may be more successful, and established hoarders who can be brought to the attention of authorities.

WARNING SIGNS FOR VETS:

* People presenting with a range of different animals, but failing to make follow up appointments

* Pets presented bathed or perfumed to cover up odours

* Claims an animal in a deplorable state has just been found or rescued

* The presence of preventable conditions, such as infections

* Underweight animals, and animals with signs of confinement such as muscle atrophy

* People travelling great distances to visit a vet, and being unwilling to say how many animals they have