Hi {{first_name}} ,

His name was Boldo. Pit bull mix, West LA shelter. His kennel card said he had growled at children.

That note is the kind of thing that follows a dog. It goes into their file, shows up on their evaluation, and in some cases it's the last thing anyone ever reads about them.

Here's what I actually found when I took Boldo out.

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Boldo came in covered in feces and urine. The people who surrendered him clearly were not caring for him.

Then they wrote that he growled at children.

Maybe he did. Maybe he didn't. What I can tell you is that people who dump a dog often add something to the surrender form to feel less guilty about doing it. That note becomes part of the dog's file. It shapes how staff and volunteers handle him. It influences whether a rescue pulls him or passes.

And the dog has no way to tell anyone otherwise.

When I evaluated Boldo, I handled him. I got in his space. I messed with him. He wasn't tough. He wasn't aggressive. He was actually really easy to work with.

Just a dog that needed structure and had been failed by the people who owned him.

Most shelters run what's called a temperament assessment. A staff member or trained volunteer takes the dog through a series of tests, usually food handling, touch sensitivity, reaction to strangers, and sometimes interaction with other dogs.

Done well by someone with real experience, this is useful information.

The problem is that most of these evaluations are being done by people with very little training.  Many lack the ability to read a dog’s body language or to understand what to really look for. Many of these people have been trained exclusively in purely positive methods. No corrections allowed. Which means the dog is being evaluated in a way that doesn't actually reveal how it responds to structure.

I've said this for years: you cannot make a full assessment of a dog without understanding how that dog responds to a correction or pressure. A dog that is pushy, reactive, or resource guarding in a shelter environment might respond immediately to two calm corrections and become completely manageable. But if the evaluation doesn't allow for that, you're only seeing half the dog.  Furthermore, the shelter is a tricky environment to truly assess a clear behavior.  

The shelter is forced to pass the information along whether it’s confirmed or not.  The shelter, in no way, can duplicate an assessment involving a small child and the dog’s reactions to them.  We rely on the relinquishing party, whether they tell the truth or not, the dog lives with the label.

That gap is costing dogs their lives.

When I evaluate a shelter dog, here's my starting point.

First: will the dog take food? Not whether it knows commands. Whether it can receive a treat at all. A dog that won't eat is usually over threshold. You're not evaluating temperament, you're evaluating stress. Come back later.

Second: how does the dog respond to handling? I check paws, ears, mouth, tail. The tail specifically tells me something important. A dog with hindquarter sensitivity is going to have trouble in a home with kids, and that's worth knowing before placement.

Third: how does the dog respond to a correction? I said this in a video about Kodo, a dog at a local LA shelter  that had been returned for "guarding his people." I dropped some food, covered it, gave him a calm no. Two corrections. He softened completely. That dog needed structure, not a behavior euthanasia conversation.

Stella - her two non-negotiables when I evaluated her were the same ones I use every time. Is this dog okay to be handled by a stranger? And is this dog okay around other dogs?

Those two things tell me more about a dog's future in a home than almost anything else.

Shelters are being pressured to use purely positive evaluation methods as well as training by organizations and advocates who have convinced the public that corrections are harmful. I've watched this happen from the inside for 20 years.

The result is that dogs with manageable behavioral issues are failing evaluations they would have passed if someone in that room knew how to use a fair correction. And shelters don't want the fight, so the dog pays for it instead.

I spent years running behavior programs at LA Animal Services with Bound Angels. Ventura County and LA were credited with being close to no-kill in part because of those programs. The difference was having trained people in the room who could work a dog fairly; rewards when earned, corrections when needed.

That's still what works. It's still what saves dogs.

Boldo got out. I hope he's still out there somewhere.

- Robert

1. Free Training Content on My Website

If you work with shelter dogs or you're evaluating a dog for adoption, I've put together detailed guides on behavioral assessment, what to look for in an evaluation, and how to read dogs under stress. No email required. Head over to [ROBERTCABRAL.COM] and dig in.

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3. Free Guide: "When to Correct vs. Redirect: Decision Matrix"

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