Evaluating A Shelter Dog
Quality evaluations by experienced, knowledgeable trainers is critical to address the over capacity problem in shelters and rescues.
Almost every dog shelter and rescue is announcing that they are at capacity. This creates some difficult situations that need solutions. Almost every dog shelter or rescue is also putting out the message that they don’t have enough adopters and fosters. Many are understaffed, which adds to the issues. Staffing issues are not my field of expertise so I’ll not be addressing that, it just needs to be mentioned.
The root of the issue is dogs need to find homes sooner so there is more room for the dogs that will be coming. This issue has existed for a couple of decades. Some shelters and rescues have adapted and found new and better ways to do things and have been successful. There are many solutions to the issues facing shelters and rescues today.
My focus will be on the training side of things because that is where I have knowledge, experience and expertise.
I will use a lot of generalizations throughout this article. Shelters and Rescues differ and some of the information may not apply to a specific shelter or rescue. The purpose in writing this is so that people involved with shelters and rescues can try to identify areas they can improve.
From a trainers perspective, the dogs behavior is the key to ensuring they find a home as quickly and efficiently as possible. The behavior needs to be viewed in two ways to accomplish this goal.
The behavior in the shelter/rescue.
How the dog behaves in the shelter effects the likelihood an adopter will consider them for adoption. A dog that is barking and snarling with glazed eyes will not draw people to them, nor would a dog that is smashed back into a corner shaking uncontrollably. On the flip side of that, a dog that sits wiggling at the front of the enclosure excitedly engaging the people will be likely to win their hearts. So it is extremely important to spend time conditioning the dogs to behave, in the shelter, in a way that encourages pleasant interaction between the dog and the adopter.
This all seems to be common sense, so why is it not happening?
It is not happening because decades old systems that are proven to be ineffective and outdated are still being used in the majority of shelters and rescues.
It starts when the dog is processed into the shelter. Generally the dog is placed in a large area with a large number of dogs in that area. After some short amount of time, a person will take the dog to a location and that person will go through a checklist with the dog. That is the checklist that will be used moving forward to make decision for that dog.
The reasons this process fails to get the dogs adopted are many.
A. Often the person doing the evaluation has no experience or training in how to evaluate a dogs behavior.
The fact that animal behavior is an unregulated field at this time, means some shelters and rescues will just assign the title of behaviorist to an employee so they sound good to the general public. To be fair, my experience has been that most will actually hire someone on staff that has some experience and knowledge. The real issue comes down to the dogs are usually evaluated by people with little to no actual training in dog behavior or experience in training dogs.
B. For the evaluation they fill out the checklist with little understanding about what the checklist is communicating about the dog they have in front of them.
The checklist has more often than not been modified by multiple people over the years and has drifted away from it’s original content that had been authored by a qualified experienced behaviorist. Here is the truth that most shelters and rescues are unaware of and it is astonishing. The evaluations being used have been proven to be at best a 60% chance of being an accurate predicter of future behavior. The worst part, the evaluations will 40% of the time predict aggression in dogs that would not show aggression.
That means it is at best a little better than flipping a coin.
C. In addition to the issues of unqualified evaluators using outdated and poorly modified checklists, the location of the evaluation is almost always chosen for the wrong reasons.
Most locations for the evaluations are based on the smallest possible space in the facility due to the lack of space do to overcrowding. This greatly effects the behavior of the dog and most of the time invalidates the evaluation entirely.
What is the result of this evaluation system?
Dogs that are incorrectly evaluated.
This incorrect evaluation results in decisions that reduce the likelihood the dog will be adopted as soon as it could have been with the proper evaluation. The evaluation is used more often to sort and classify dogs than it is used to develop a plan to address anything that is a roadblock to the dog getting adopted.
These evaluations are filed away and referenced when an adopter shows interest in the dog.
The adoption counselor then uses the evaluation to decide if the dog is disqualified from that particular adopter. Remember 40% of the dogs evaluated with aggression would in reality show no aggression.
How would all of these overcrowded shelters look if they would place 40% more dogs up for adoption without the label of aggressive dog?
The behavior in the adopters home.
Evaluating the dog for predictability of behavior in the adopters home is a different focus than the evaluation for behavior in the shelter.
Behavior in the shelter is almost completely irrelevant to evaluating a dog for predicting behavior in the home.
The staff in shelters and rescues often make errors in evaluating for the adopters home.
The staff are in a kennel environment all day every day with dogs and have been conditioned to act and think based on that environment. They rarely, if ever, see the dogs after the dogs leave the shelter and go into a home. So the only view they get of the dogs that come into the shelter are how the dogs behave in a kennel environment.
Now there are specifics that need to be evaluated based on the home of the adopter.
At the top of the priorities would be the people and other pets in the home.
The dog and people should be matched based on the likelihood they will be able to form a good relationship. A trained, experienced evaluator is able to assess and communicate to the adopters the likelihood of success and what steps would be needed to accomplish a successful adoption.
Seeing the dog and people interact while gathering information about the home and expectations would give an evaluator what they needed to predict the success of an adoption.
Creating a plan with the adopters that includes possible follow-up training would ensure the dog would be able to successfully stay in the home.
If shelters and rescues want to see more dogs going into homes they need to adapt and make sure they have qualified experienced trainers/behaviorist doing evaluations that are meaningful and purposed. By better assessing the dogs with the right focus, the shelters and rescues can increase their placements without increasing risk.
How is your local shelter doing evaluations? If you think there is room for improvement, direct them to this article.
Hopefully, quality evaluations by experienced, knowledgeable trainers will address the over capacity problem in shelters and rescues sooner rather than later.