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The twisted case of animal collector Vikki Kittles offers a look at the psychology of people who feel a compulsion to acquire more animals than they can care for

By PAT FORGEY

ASTORIA, Ore. - Despite months of jail, Vikki Kittles is likely every bit the animal collector today that she was the day she was arrested with 115 filthy, diseased, malnourished dogs penned up in an old school bus east of Astoria.

Though animal collector syndrome is slowly becoming better known, at that time in April, 1993 few people in Clatsop County knew what an animal collector was.

One of those who did was Tommie Brunick, the county's animal control supervisor and a 20-year veteran of the animal control business. Another was Kittles, a self-professed animal collector. Collectors such as Kittles are the bane of animal rights groups and animal control officers like Brunick. When collecting gets out of hand, they are the ones who see the tragic results for the dogs, cats, and other animals involved.

"Every major humane organization is critical of collectors because invariably they do great harm," according to Dennis Fetko, an animal behavior expert who advised Clatsop County on the phenomenon during the Kittles case.

Collectors can range from the well meaning elderly lady who feeds all the neighborhood strays, but provides no veterinary care and has none spayed or neutered to drastic cases such as Kittles, said Randy Lockwood, a Humane Society of the United States vice president. He's studied more than 100 such cases and was an expert witness at Kittles' trial.

"I've met many Vikki Kittles over the last decade, but she is almost the textbook case," he said.

Lockwood has published articles on the collector syndrome, but said that those who have studied it still don't know whether it's an obsessive/compulsive disorder or and addiction, but that collectors have elements of both.

Simply put, an animal collector is considered to be someone who accumulates more animals than they can care for, according to those who have been studying such cases.

For the animals, that can range from a lack of the attention and affection they need to malnutrition, parasites, disease resulting in prolonged suffering and death.

There's no set number of animals which is too many, they say. Though such people have probably always been around, they've only been studied as apathology for a little more than a decade, Lockwood said.

Collectors often profess a love for animals, but in practice experts like Lockwood and Fetko say it's a twisted passion which often harms or even kills the animals. Animal collectors often care more about their control over the animals than the suffering that they are inflicting on the animals. Often they are unable to even recognize the suffering.

Collectors also share another common trait, a desire for secrecy.

When a neighbor in Clatsop County tipped authorities to the presence of Kittles' school bus load of animals in an isolated rural area east of Astoria, she was aghast at the prospect of discovery. Knowing from past experience what the attention of authorities might bring down upon an animal collector, she took quick action to try to fend off an inquiry.

First she called the 911 dispatch center and told them that everything was OK and that there was no reason to come out and make an in-person check.

That just piqued Brunick's interest.

When she got a hold of Kittles on the phone, she asked how many dogs there were. Kittles didn't want to answer. Brunick, fearing that she had a collector on her hands, offered a guess.

"Are there more than 20 but less than 50?" she asked. "About that," Kittles responded. Kittles had good reason for trying to mislead Brunick. She's had repeated run-ins with the law over the years, and was afraid that attention might bring the more of the same.

"I did not want to tell her how many dogs I had, no doubt about it," she later admitted in court.

In Florida Kittles had done the same thing, according to a detective who investigated her there. She was then living in a house crowded with animals.

Manatee County Sheriff's Department Detective Ned Foy entered the house and found it filled with feces, empty dog food sacks, and even dead bodies of other dogs. In a back bedroom he found two horses.

"She was living just totally like an animal," he said.

When Brunick and sheriff's deputies got to Kittles' bus, in an unincorporated rural area east of Astoria, Brunick found what she'd feared. Deputies and volunteers from the animal shelter worked late into the night to empty Kittles' bus of dogs. They resumed early the next morning, and when they finally finished late in the afternoon they'd found 115 dogs, four cats and two chickens.

The next two years were a nightmare for Brunick, as the county's two animal control officers and a handful of volunteers tried to care for many times the number of animals to which the county was accustomed to.

The case languished in the legal system for more than two years, and at one point Brunick even had to hire her own attorney to keep protect the animals from Kittles. She was later named national Animal Control Officer of the Year for her efforts.

Lockwood said that the attempt at avoiding discovery was typical of collectors, as was minimizing the extent of the problem.

An animal collector will often say "I can't let you in the house right now, it's a little dirty,' when in fact it's three feet deep in feces," Lockwood said.

Kittles bitterly fought the charges against her, and at the same time offered a spirited defense of animal collecting.

"I am frankly not ashamed to say that I am an animal collector," she said.

In Kittles' defense of animal collectors, she likened it to a way of life which is simply different. Whatever she did, she said, was done to save dogs' lives.

Kittles said that her goal was to save animals from euthanasia, and that authorities' attempts to keep her from doing that were akin to religious persecution.

"I refuse to kill," she said, "That is my religious conscience." Kittles said that the term "animal collectors" was developed by a network of veterinarians, animal control groups, and others who used the term like the most vicious of racial epithets to stop people like her from saving animals from euthanasia.

"These veterinarians kill animals on a daily basis, and the do it for money," she said.

According to Lockwood, Kittles' attacks on veterinarians and conspiracy allegations are not unusual.

"They claim to be picked upon for a lifestyle that's a little different," he said, when it fact it is a lifestyle which is based on the unnecessary suffering of animals, sometimes dozens upon dozens of animals.

Kittles was convicted of 42 counts of animal neglect for treating the animals she'd picked up across the country so poorly that many suffered severe psychological or physical damage. About 80 percent of the dogs rescued from Kittles were able to be placed in adoptive homes; the remainder either died while Kittles was awaiting trial and refused to allow them medical care or had to be euthanized.

Now that Kittles is being released, District Attorney Josh Marquis and others are concerned that she remains a continuing danger to animals. She has about 4 years on probation left during which time she is not allowed to possess animals.

When Judge Berkeley Smith sentenced her he ordered counseling in an effort to break her of her animal collecting, however Kittles refused to cooperate with state psychiatrists. That resulted in probation violations which added months to her sentence, but eventually the counseling requirement was dropped. "Without counseling, the recidivism rate for collectors is pretty much 100 percent," Lockwood warned.

ANIMAL COLLECTOR CHARACTERISTICS:

An apparent need to have many animals, and usually many inanimate objects as well: an addiction to clutter

Intelligence and communication skills: combined with a shrewd ability to attract sympathy for themselves, no matter how abused their animals may be. Enablers who fund collectors' efforts are also common.

A stubborn refusal to part with any of their animals, either through adoption of relatively healthy animals or euthanasia of sick ones. Sometimes, they even keep the dead ones.

A clandestine lifestyle - there is often a stark contrast between the collector's public persona and his/her private life. Though they are sometimes found in cities, isolated rerual areas better afford the isolation collectors seek.

A tendency to deny reality - they insist that ill animals are healthy; that those confined for long periods in small cages or kennels are comfortable; that overcrowding does not subject animals to severe stress and related diseases; etc.

Recidivism - Unless expert psychiatric care is obtained, collectors almost invariably return to old ways, even if convicted of cruelty to animals.

Claims of special knowledge or skills - Animal collectors often maintain that they - and only they - can cure their animals medical problems through secret or special remedies.

Source: New York State Humane Association; Randy Lockwood

Forgey Bio: Freelance journalist Pat Forgey lives in Seaside, Ore., and was the only reporter to cover the entire Kittles court saga, reporting for a several newspapers, including The Oregonian of Portland. He can be reached by E-mail at pforgeya@pacifier.com.