She encouraged shelters to make decisions about dogs based on the animals behavior and temperament, not on lack of space or length of stay in the facility, and to match people with particular dogs to increase the chances of successful adoption. More people would come to the shelter if it wasn t such a crap shoot Russian roulette, she said. We can t expect people to come and adopt if we re not going to give them the right dog. The evaluation of the dog should get past breed biases and personal likes and dislikes, Sternberg told the crowd. Behavior problems bother some people and not others.
All dogs have behavior problems, but owners learn to compromise.
What s a problem for you isn t necessarily a problem for me, she said. It s not about good temperament or bad temperament, it s what people want to live with. Shelter workers should learn as much as possible about the dog before conducting the evaluation. For example, she noted that dogs surrendered by their owners generally show more separation anxiety than dogs picked up as strays and said that all dogs should be observed for two or three days before the test to see how they react to the stress of impoundment. The test Sternberg cautioned shelter workers that the testing process can be dangerous and should never be done alone.