Cat hoarding is a term describing the tendency of some people to amass a huge collection of cats to the point where it becomes unhealthy for the cats and the individuals. The actual number of cats that would be considered too many may vary some depending on the person's living conditions and the reasons for their accumulation. Certain mental disorders have been associated with cat hoarding and other forms of animal hoarding, which experts often think of as a form of abuse because of the health risks present when too many animals are forced to live in the same location.
The behavior involved in cat hoarding often begins with noble intentions. For example, a person may start taking in stray cats when he finds them because he wants to help them and keep them safe from harm. After a while, the number cats may start to accumulate to the point where the person doesn't have the money to neuter them, or they can start to multiply very rapidly. Another example would be someone who tries to run a volunteer no-kill animal shelter without the right facilities or training to do so, and then the animals become more than the individual can handle. This sort of accidental accumulation of cats could potentially happen to people for many different reasons, but the problem for hoarders is that they are generally in denial about the fact that there's a problem, and they are often completely unwilling to take any corrective action.
Hoarding can happen with any kind of pet, but cats are often more common in this situation than others. Cats are sometimes a bit easier to keep indoors than dogs, which might make some people overestimate the number of cats they can handle comfortably. It's also true that cats can multiply very rapidly if there are many in one location, and this can sometimes happen more suddenly and uncontrollably than it would with dogs in the same situation, partly because cats ovulate much more frequently.
Animal hoarders might unintentionally harm the cats because they can't usually take care of each pet as well as they should. This means their pets may be more likely to suffer from disease and malnutrition. It is also common for hoarders to live in horrible sanitary conditions, which may also endanger their animals.
Cat hoarding hasn't actually been classified as a mental disorder, but some experts think it usually grows out of some kind of mental problem. For example, many of the people who hoard animals have suffered some kind of neglect or had relationship problems of some kind in their childhoods. These people may find that they have an easier time making friends with animals than they do with other people, and may eventually see their animals as a full replacement for normal human contact. It's also generally true that those who engage in cat hoarding and other kinds of animal hoarding are somewhat delusional about the reality of their situation, often believing that there isn't really anything wrong.
