Paris Hilton: Hoarder, Abusive, or Just Stupid?

At one point, she called herself an animal-rights activist, insisting that she would never wear fur and had stopped eating meat, surviving on "pasta and stuff."

But now there are all these stories of her abandoning her cat, hoarding dogs, and locking puppies in closets. What's going on, Paris? Ten dogs didn't do it for ya? You just had to have seventeen?

And despite her blunder of admitting to having seventeen dogs on Ellen Degeneres' talk show (in Los Angeles, it is illegal to have more than three unless you are a licensed breeder), Paris plugs on in her constant struggle for... more animals?

Who is selling this woman her dogs?? Who told her it would be a good idea to smuggle a monkey from Las Vegas to L.A. to be her pet? Who allowed her to ship a baby kangaroo back to the States, only to have it returned to Australia when Hilton learned that it would "get aggressive"?

So what's the deal? Is Paris Hilton an animal hoarder? Is she intentionally abusing these animals? Or is she just plain stupid?

I think we can rule out intentional abuse first off. People who abuse animals do so because they feel powerless, just like people who abuse children. I don't think that Paris Hilton feels powerless (though I do think that her psychology has a lot to do with her relationship to her animals, but more on that later).

So let's assume that Paris is not deliberately aquiring animals with the intentions of starving, abandoning, or otherwise providing inadequate care for them.

An animal hoarder is a person who has more animals than they can care for and at the same time denies this fact.

Sure, Paris Hilton has the money to throw at these animals to get them proper veterinary care and pay people to take care of them, but at the same time she's locking them in closets, and they're dying.

Hoarders notoriously care immensely about their animals but are blind to the fact that they provide inadequate care. And hoarding behavior is usually indicative of some underlying psychological problem, be it Obsessive Compulsive Disorder, addiction, or delusion.

Paris has allegedly gotten a new puppy because of his cuteness, then put him in the closet because she didn't want him to "make a mess" when she went out. She then forgot about him, and her employees found him dead weeks later when they were cleaning.

Maybe she's addicted to the instant unconditional love that a puppy gives. Or maybe she's just stupid.

I think most people would say that, yes, Paris Hilton is stupid. Then again, is she a marketing genius with all the publicity she creates for herself? I mean, she is famous for doing absolutely nothing.

So is she oblivious to the care that an animal needs, and that's why these animals are being abused? She seems to have forgotten her cat at the vet after it was neutered, and she forgot the puppy that she left in the closet. It doesn't sound so bad until the puppy dies.

Maybe she's not stupid; maybe she just has no concept of responsibility.

Unfortunately, she has a great influence over many people, especially impressionable young people. Hopefully most of them will be smart enough not to follow in her footsteps by thinking that pets are merely accessories to be discarded when you're bored of them.

Neuter your pets, everyone, lest their offspring come into the hands of this dumb hoarder.

Personally, I'm a little outraged at most of Hollywood's behavior these days, but the fact that Paris Hilton is so blatantly abandoning her animals is pretty upsetting.

I'm willing to bet that she's a little bit hoarder, a little bit stupid, a little bit just plain irresponsible. But come on. Can't she just hire someone to manage the zoo she has collected? She buys these exotic pets (like her Kinkajou, Baby Luv) with no regard to their intensive care schedule. So just hire someone to care for them!

It's not like she doesn't have the cash.