For years, I was the sort of dog-less dog-lover that would frequent dog parks. If you spent anytime at these places, you’ll have seen folks like me. Yes, I threw balls for other people’s dogs. I petted those dogs, happy of the fur and the wags, watched them run, and marveled at their body language and play styles.

Situation finally changed enough that I was able to bring a dog back into my life. I started scouring Petfinder, the local shelters and rescues looking for the right dog to fit into our life. We were two working adults, an elementary school aged boy and a difficult cat; we would need a special dog. There were telephone calls and interviews, fidgety long drives with my son to meet dogs that were not the right one. At the end of one such drive there was a foster home with six herding dog mixes and a couple of resident dogs. The dog we were there to meet was a narrow little cattledog mix with bright darting eyes. He took right to my son, seemed fine with cats and made fantastic eye contact. I was sold!

He was not who we thought he was. He was not who his foster thought he was. He was a deeply un-easy paranoid dog, likely with very limited socialization when he was young. He had major digestive issues and was hyper-sensitive. We quickly learned these things: no raising of hands, no loud voices, don’t drop anything, kitchen floor was right out so we used the backdoor for the first several months with him, fast motions were very frightening to him, most other dogs made him nervous, many men made him retreat and cringe if not lip curl and urinate, stress put him into hunger strikes…but he was smart and tried. We tried too.

Many years of work along this road, Rio is much better but he will never be a normal dog. He is not all together trust worthy and has landed bites, never broken skin. He is fear reactive not aggressive but will advance if he has been pushed beyond his limits (these limits vary wildly and are difficult to predict). He is a complete mess without the comfort of another dog he trusts.

He would not have passed a behavior assessment. He came through a small county shelter. Rescue pulled him as the county agency did not think they could place him. Before that he was a tick covered cowering stray.

If I had known then what I know now, what I have had to learn to live with this dog, I would never have adopted him.

It sounds ugly, and it hurts to say, but he probably should never have been placed. We are very devoted to him, I love this crazy little dog, but it will never be easy to live with him and he is so often beside himself trying to cope.

Living, and yes loving, this dog has led me into animal welfare; first by learning how to try and understand and help him through training and behavior modification work. That led into volunteer at shelters and finally to being employed in the field for about five years now. I have worked cleaning kennels and catteries, adoption counseling, as an outreach coordinator, as a humane educator and as a behavior specialist. I’ve studied through coursework, books and internships to get where I am now.

Rio is still with us and his quality of life is fairly good. Would I give him up? Would I have him euthanized? No, I know him, love him, am responsible for him….now.

Should he have been adopted out? No, I don’t think so.

Well structured behavior evaluations, done by qualified specialists, help find which pets belong in which sorts of families. Should they make euthanasia decisions? No, they are tools that help professionals make that call, along with all sorts of other information about the pet and the resources that the organization responsible for the pet has to put forward toward this pet.

Organizations need to be responsible for the pets in their care, as well as to the community they serve and the households they place their adopted pets into.

The results of these evaluations help the adoption counselors place the right dog in the right home and help the public not just fall for the cute furry face but learn more about the dog they are inviting into their homes and their hearts.

Meet-your-Match (http://www.aspca.org/site/PageServer?pagename=adopt_mym) is a great program, designed carefully to do just that – help place the right pet with the right person. There are a number of other basic assessment tools being used at shelters around the nation as well, Assess-a-Pet (http://www.suesternberg.com/00assess.html) and SAFER (http://www.aspca.org/site/PageServer?pagename=aspcapromym_landing) are the most popular. There are far too many shelters doing terrible jobs using these tools or making their own up on a wing and a prayer. This cost lives and ruins trust.

Bark magazine ran an interesting article about the controversy that has sprung up about using behavior assessments in shelters (http://thebark.com/ezine/features_specialFeatures/specialFeatures_04.html).

Whether they are called behavior evaluations or temperament testing, they are a real hot button in the field. I strongly stand by them as important tools, when preformed correctly by trained staff and when the information is used in context and not as a stand alone set of facts.

Rio has led me here. All the pets I’ve worked with at shelters have led me here. I am still learning, still striving and some days struggling to learn; I am still following them.

"A bone to the dog is not charity. Charity is the bone shared with the dog, when you are just as hungry as the dog." - Jack London