Animal hoarders — mentally ill?

"This is not about helping animals at all; it's about helping themselves," he told the Idaho Statesman. "It's about helping fill their own bucket of need through animals." Animal hoarding is believed to be linked to mental illness, but there hasn't been enough study of the problem for medical experts to agree on the underlying causes or possible triggers.

Hoarding has been associated with a number of psychological disorders, including obsessive-compulsive disorder, or OCD, and borderline personality disorder, though Patronek said the latest research indicates that animal hoarding may not be linked to OCD after all.

Celeste Killeen of Boise, who works at a small, private social services agency, hoped to gain some insight into the problem by researching and writing a book about Erickson.

"I thought that if we could hear from Mrs. Erickson about her life and her perspectives, we could learn something," said Killeen, who wrote a book, "Inside Animal Hoarding: The Case of Barbara Erickson and Her 552 Dogs," recently published by Purdue University Press.

Whatever the underlying disorders turn out to be, counseling and monitoring are necessary to prevent the behavior from recurring. The recidivism rate is close to 100 percent, experts say.

Studies of hoarding cases have revealed that many hoarders describe traumatic childhoods, neglectful or absent parents, and companion pets that offered perhaps their only stable and nurturing relationship.

Patronek co-authored a paper on hoarding in the April issue of Clinical Psychology Review. The pathological accumulation of animals was first described in published research in 1981, but the term "animal hoarding" wasn't coined and defined until 1999.

Animal hoarders can be men or women, young or old, and they come from all walks of life, including volunteers who work for animal rescue groups.

But studies show that the majority of cases involve women. Most are unmarried and live alone.

Rosenthal said municipalities in other states have tipped him off to animal hoarders who have moved to Idaho.

"These folks bebop around from state to state," Rosenthal said. "When they get too much notoriety, they move." The Ericksons certainly fit that profile, moving numerous times in Idaho and Oregon. When they were between homes, they lived in their camper, Killeen said.