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EDINBURG — With now nearly 300 animals, mostly dogs, being recovered from several Upper Valley homes since April, the employees at Palm Valley Animal Society say they have worked tirelessly to undo the harm caused by these severe hoarding cases.
But there’s only so much the mostly volunteer staff say they can do with limited resources, and not all of the animals — some which arrive in terrible shape, including being covered nearly entirely in matted fur or severely malnourished — make it out alive.
Faith Wright, director of operations at Palm Valley Animal Society, witnessed one recovery of dozens of dogs from one of these cases, and said what she saw left her changed forever.
“It was very much a hoarding home,” Wright said regarding the second animal hoarding case this year in the Rio Grande Valley. “So, like, I will never eat vanilla wafers again because there was a whole wall of vanilla wafers stacked up in boxes…”
On April 4, a neighbor of 63-year-old Jose Antonio Moli called police to report that there was loud barking coming from inside Moli’s home and that his “trash can always (is) overflowing possible with animal feces.”
Wright stated they found 68 animals in that home, including a macaw and a turtle.
The macaw was living in a dog crate, the cats were living in a “catio-type thing” with no A/C, lying atop each other, and the turtle was in a pool.
According to Wright, neighbors said that Moli would bring in turtles, they would die and then he’d get rid of them. Luckily, the turtle was alive when PVAS got a hold of it and was adopted as well as the macaw.
Wright said that many of those cats were adopted at an event in Delaware where they flew out over a hundred animals to be rescued.
Speaking to Hidalgo County Animal Control officials, insight regarding their day-to-day reveals the difficulties in rescuing animals.
“The biggest problem is the amount of animals that we can pick up a day,” Animal Control Officer Fabian Luevano said. “They give us an amount per day. We try to work it out with everybody but it’s kind of hard.”
According to Animal Control Supervisor Jennifer Alvarez, their partners, the various animal shelters found in the RGV, give Animal Control a number of animals they can take in that day and it varies, sometimes between five to 20 for example.
Alvarez said that officers, from the moment they start their day, assess calls from the previous day and that morning and make the difficult decision on choosing which calls to respond to as not all animals can be rescued.
On June 21, an 85-year-old woman was mauled to death by two of her 21 dogs in rural Monte Alto after she had gone outside to feed them.
All 21 dogs were taken to La Joya and euthanized as dangerous dogs, according to Wright.
When asked about the euthanization of those dogs, Wright said they wouldn’t have been able to take them in.
“I don’t know anything about the dogs. I know that two were involved in a direct killing of a woman, so obviously we would not have kept those alive either,” Wright said. “I mean, how do you adopt that out?”
Deputy Director of Health Wellness and Animal Services for the city of Brownsville Dr. Antonio Caldwell provided more insight regarding the ongoings of animal control and echoed the same sentiments coming from Hidalgo County.
Caldwell says their shelter is always running at capacity and revealed that Brownsville has an ordinance where a resident can have no more than three dogs.
Similar to Hidalgo County, Caldwell’s shelter can only take in anywhere between 10 to 20 dogs on an average day.
So far, Brownsville has only dealt with about two hoarding cases in the past two months, according to Caldwell.
“I remember the first one that we responded to, just the environment that the animals and humans were living in was very shocking,” Caldwell said. “It was really hard to take in.”
Caldwell said the animals they rescued from that case were very sick and skinny resulting in them making the difficult decision of putting them down because it was the humane thing to do.
Fortunately, the rest were able to get adopted into “happy homes” and others were sent to rescue groups. Caldwell described it as a rainbow at the end of the storm.
Brownsville has taken in about 43 animals from both cases whereas PVAS has taken closer to 300.
About one-third of those 300 dogs came from the biggest hoarding case in Upper Valley this year.
On March 31, two McAllen women were charged with 94 counts of animal cruelty after the stench of death emanating from their home caused a delivery driver to call police since they believed there was a dead body inside the home.
According to the initial report, 93 dogs and one cat were rescued from the home.
Wright said that they were initially told they’d be taking in 20 dogs, but were then surprised by the 90-plus dogs. Fortunately, PVAS was able to handle the immense intake.
“I don’t know who else would have the ability to take these animals in,” Wright said. “I don’t think there’s a lot of shelters in the RGV that can do that type of thing.”
Wright credited her team at PVAS for getting the job done.
Officials stated that hoarding can be a result of mental illness, but animal hoarding often begins with good intentions and eventually spirals.
“Hoarding, unfortunately, is a mental disease,” Alvarez, the Hidalgo County Animal Control supervisor, said. “You know, people can hoard items, people can hoard cars and in these cases, people can hoard animals. It can be for companionship. It starts as one and two and then it accumulates to more. It could just be that they don’t like to let go. So, this fills a void for them and, unfortunately, it just gets out of hand.”
Caldwell corroborated Alvarez’s statement regarding the reason people tend to hoard animals stating that they start with good intentions with a goal of making an impact in saving animals, but they eventually get overwhelmed.
On Tuesday, PVAS had to deal with their fourth case of animal hoarding. This one involved a woman living in an abandoned property who was taking power from her neighbor using an extension cord.
According to Wright, the woman has family that could support her, but she had to give up the 45 dogs.
Wright said that many of those dogs were altered, meaning they were spayed and neutered, so she believes she was trying to do right, but then became overwhelmed.
Wright added that the woman was saddened when she had to give away her dogs, but doing so allowed her to avoid criminal charges.
“Our message to the community continues to be the same, if you’re trying to help but you get overwhelmed, call us early,” Wright said. “Don’t call us late. Don’t call us when you have 40, 50, 60, 70, 80, 90. Call us when you have 10. Let us help you now.”
