Humane society does great work and it is nice to see dogs from tough situations get into better homes. Scott, with dogs perceived by some to be more aggressive by nature, how do you assess the potential risks when posting for adoption. always a hot button issue but interested in your view. Thanks

Bronco is quite the handsome terrier!

Just beautiful. Someone will be very lucky to take home this 'nanny' dog.

Bronco is quite the handsome terrier!

Just beautiful. Someone will be very lucky to take home this 'nanny' dog.

Dear "question":
First, thanks for your kind comments. We are proud of the work we do to help dogs overcome those tough situations you mentioned and help them find new homes. And, you have indeed hit on a hot button issue. The short answer to your question is that we sometimes determine that we cannot fix a dog in our care or safely place that dog in a home. Now, the long answer. We don’t believe there is a simple test for aggression; it's not a like a snap test for heartworm or FIV where you take a little sample, put it in a device and get a positive or negative result. You don't do a-b-c-d steps to a dog and get a result. And, some behaviors are perfectly natural for dogs (prey drive, resource guarding, territorial behavior) but we consider them inappropriate or inconvenient for dogs we want to live with as pets in our homes. In other words, the dogs aren't wrong or broken, it's just that we're picking and choosing what we do and do not find suitable to live with. When we assess dogs’ adoptability, we look for dogs who are social with people, dogs that seek out interaction with and direction from people. We look for dogs who are tolerant of all kinds of things: invasive physical handling, other dogs, kids, objects that are commonly part of our day-to-day world. We also look for dogs who have the ability to cope with scary or stressful things and situations as well as dogs who can recover well from scary and stressful situations. It's OK for a dog to be nervous or frightened by or about something, but we want to see them recover from it and move on. For those dogs who struggle with this, we like to see them look to people for direction because it indicates they’re moldable and trainable. In the dogs we work with before making an adoption decision, we look for dogs who have the potential to adapt to the standards we've set for dogs we adopt out. A dog who becomes more accepting of and comfortable with invasive handling, for example. Hope this helps you understand a complicated part of our work!