Images of deliberately mislabeled pit bulls that DogsBite.org located in a 60 second online search. Adoptable dogs from taxpayer-funded open intake shelters in the Midwest and Northeast.1
DogsBite.org - In mid-December, this letter was sent into our nonprofit. We've known for several years now that many open intake shelters operate in this manner. But first-hand accounts are still painful to read. The degree of full-fledged lying to the public cannot be expressed enough. The volume of dogs with aggression being released to rescues and unprepared adopters cannot be expressed enough. That "supervisors" are driving both factors cannot be expressed enough either.
The degree of "hoopla" and "self-congratulation" by rescues after "saving" a dog with extreme aggression, only to secretly put it down, hiding this from their rabid supporters, is yet another dysfunction. It is a vicious cycle, all to carry out the single metric 90% "save rate" of no-kill. The cycle is compounded by a grim result: unstable pit bulls being released to unprepared adopters. Some of these dogs will go on to kill multiple pet dogs; the great irony under the sham of no-kill.
Most of these shelters and rescues, along with their staff, volunteers, and unwitting adopters, oppose mandatory pit bull sterilization laws too, which is the only humane solution to this perpetuating problem that does not restrict ownership in any other way. A 2011 study found that only 27% of pit bulls are spay/neutered, whereas all dog breeds combined is 64%. The author's own experience at an open intake shelter remarks on the low pit bull spay/neuter rate too.
I worked at an open intake shelter for 8 months in 2019. My role was to market adoptable dogs to the public and to private rescue groups. I interacted with medical staff, behaviorists and administrators that consistently denied the Pit Bull crisis.
About 65% of the dogs that came into the shelter were either pit bulls or very obviously mixed with pit bull, but any dog that was not an obvious, undeniable pit bull was labeled and marketed as a Lab or boxer-mix due to breed specific regulations and restrictions with HOAs and landlords, especially solid brown or black dogs that looked nothing like a Lab in structure. An incredible number of these dogs had incidents/bite histories from attacking/killing cats and other dogs, which were glossed over or explained away by supervisors. Many times I would go into the system and re-lable a dog’s breed only to have it changed back by a supervisor and get chastised that no one really knew a dog’s breed without DNA testing and it was our job to get dogs released alive to rescues or adopted.
In the time I worked there, there were four dogs destroyed purely for behavioral concerns, and none were pit bulls -- one was a German shepherd, a mastiff/husky mix, and two rottweilers. Dogs with serious bite/attack histories were released back to their owners as dangerous dogs despite being aggressive and escape-prone, because the supervisors were afraid of the online community of pit bull advocates that watched our online databases like hawks and would call/email/bombard the Facebook page with angry comments if they believed a pit-type dog was in danger of being euthanized due to behavior. Two dogs were sent to rescues after separate, serious incidents, including one where a dog removed and consumed a portion of an animal control officer’s calf after tearing through his uniform pants and latching on; the other dog had killed three smaller dogs in separate incidents after escaping from his yard. Still, both dogs were sent to rescues at great expense and with much online hoopla and self-congratulation. Both dogs were then euthanized within weeks by the rescues that pulled them due to their extreme aggression, which made them impossible to approach, much less train, but none of this was spoken about to the rescues followers or supporters.
There were many times that I was made to feel like I was being unfair to the dogs I was evaluating when I noted their behavioral issues and triggers, such as obvious aggression toward other dogs, barrier guarding, or high prey drive directed toward smaller animals. I was chastised by management for being honest about these dogs, and many times I worried about the homes the dogs went to, with many being poorly prepared for any dog, much less one with the inherent unpredictability of temperament inherent with dogs bred to attack their own kind and smaller animals. Four times, pit bull-type dogs were returned for aggression; one attacked a child in the home, but all five were then sent to rescues, with their hapless adopters demonized as being unfit to own an animal or cruel to the dog when no evidence of such conditions existed.
As many other writers on your blog have noted, because pit bull breeders seem to be less responsible with spaying and neutering their dogs, it is very difficult to find a dog in a shelter or non-breed specific rescue that is not at least partially mixed with pit bull, and the pressures from the greater dog owning community to guilt new pet owners into adopting rather than buying compels people to take on bully breeds who are poorly prepared for them. Personally, as a dog professional, I have no interest in owning a bully breed, which will cost the same amount (or greater, due to the skin issues that also seem to plague them) to vet and feed as any other similar sized dog, with the additional challenge of dealing with unpredictability when it comes to temperament and the restrictions against them. I hope to see effective sterilization shots come onto the market in the future that will allow these dogs to be eliminated from the gene pool. There is no place for this type of dog or the genetics for dog/small animal aggression in a modern, companion animal valuing society.
The misguided "save them all" crusade offers no solutions to the stop the vicious cycle. The no-kill solution is to repeal all municipal-level and housing breed-restrictions on pit bull-type dogs. Their solution is to grow the problem, not to reduce it, by targeting the root of the problem: fewer of these dogs being born. This author offers one solution: "I hope to see effective sterilization shots come onto the market in the future that will allow these dogs to be eliminated from the gene pool."
The author also echoes the sentiment of public safety advocate Ann Marie Rogers, whose experience of pit bulls "was reinforced on a daily basis as we came across animal victims of pit bull attacks and their bereaved owners." The author has a deep concern about dogs with animal aggression routinely being adopted out. "There is no place for this type of dog or the genetics for dog/small animal aggression in a modern, companion animal valuing society," the author states.
"It is not a success, and it is not responsible, if we show sympathy for the dogs we see at our animal shelters, but have no concern for creatures we do not actually meet: the pets and children, out of sight, out of mind, who may pay the price if we unleash the dogs we should euthanize for public safety reasons."2 - Jim Luckwick statement to the Office of the Inspector General, 03/27/15
Rogers and the author, both with animal welfare backgrounds, also used the word "consume" when referencing a violent pit bull attack. "Starvation is not a prerequisite for a pit bull to kill and consume a human being," Rogers said. This author states: "Where a dog removed and consumed a portion of an animal control officer’s calf after tearing through his uniform pants and latching on." We see this routinely in fatal pit bull maulings. Pit bulls are not just biting, they are consuming.
2Jim Luckwick statement to the Office of the Inspector General, 03/27/15. Background.
Related articles:
12/16/20: Ann Marie Rogers: Animal Welfare Advocate, Animal Control Officer, Public Safety...
07/31/20: 2020 Edition: 125 Behavior Terms for Shelter Dogs Decoded that Mask Aggression
10/16/19: A Pit Bull Adoption Disaster: Animal Aggression, Anti-Anxiety Medication and More
05/11/18: Shelters and Humane Groups Often 'Encode' and 'Conceal' Aggression in Adoption...
09/20/16: What's Behind the Clickbait Web Advertisements of Aggressive Shelter Dogs...
This is absolute insanity. This is something that should be national news. People should be outraged at what is going on in this shelter system. I see shelter run commercials everyday talking about the dog abuse and puppy mill hooplah. Okay whatever. But WHERE are the commercials exposing these corrupt shelters??? Where is the media to report on these shelters pushing pit bulls onto the public that end up mauling and killing? So many people have already spoken out and the evidence is clear as day. This needs to be public news NOW.
Look first directly at the Humane Society. They intentionally mis-label dog breeds all the time, or use code words/phrases, like “just needs to decompress” or “dog selective.”
Smaller rescues are just as bad. And they are relentlessly bullied by pit advocates. One small poodle rescue was viciously bullied and threatened with death because they refuse to adopt 3-4 lb poodles to owners of large dogs, especially pits. Tia Torres of Pitbulls and Parolees literally had to come to that rescue’s defense!
I will never rescue from an organization that is not breed specific and that has a long list of requirements. They care.
I completely agree. We adopted a two year old dog from a local no-kill rescue shelter. They labeled him a “great dane mix” and did say he had a “strong prey drive.” He’d been returned to the rescue after attacking a neighbor’s cat.
He is a great family dog, and we didn’t think any more of it. We added a puppy to our family a year later, and everything was fine. For two years they got along GREAT. Until one day our “great dane mix” snapped and tried to kill our lab mix.
We rehomed the lab mix to keep her safe and ordered a DNA test for the “great dane mix.” Not a drop of working group DNA in him. He’s half pit, half akita. The rescue refused to take him back because he had a bite history! Even though we adopted him after he’d knowingly attacked another family pet…These shelters are completely irresponsible! We live in a city with a breed ban, so they deliberately mislabeled him.
I want to know what happened to all the commercials for poverty-stricken children…I never see them anymore — is our culture so emotionally bankrupt that we care about rescue dogs more than rescuing children???
This sort of aggressive bullying is lamentably effective, and leads to yet more worthless pit bulls clogging the system: “[S]upervisors were afraid of the online community of pit bull advocates that watched our online databases like hawks and would call/email/bombard the Facebook page with angry comments if they believed a pit-type dog was in danger of being euthanized due to behavior.”
Yes, and caving to bullying only guarantees more bullying.
It’s bad enough that pit bull advocates who resort to bullying have, effectively, found a way to steer shelter policies via that bullying.
It’s worse when the policies they are manipulating result in harm to humans and animals. This is a case where “the blood for this is on your hands” really is true. Unfortunately, the bullies are sociopaths who have neither empathy nor shame. Why are we letting them control decisions that affect public safety?
Yes, it’s like if I went to my local garden center wanting some Tomato and Pepper plants for my garden and I found out they had nothing available except Kudzu and Poison Ivy and kept pressuring and guilting me into wanting to plant THAT around my yard. These pit bull bans need to mandate that no fighting breeds are adopted out by these shelter, they should all be put down. There, imagine how much money that would save as well. I had heard back in 2014 that the Champaign County shelter was no good for getting a dog, nothing but pit bulls and pit bull mixes but I hadn’t realized till now the problem was nationwide.
If you lie about something you’re trying to sell, isn’t that consumer fraud?
Exactly, Quiet.
That’s why all the language is tainted. “Rescuing/adopting”.
If I purchase a car that blows up on the road two weeks later, I can sue the person who sold it and the manufacturer because I *own* it.
You can’t sue a foster agency if you adopt a troubled child who chases your sister around with a knife because the child is “adopted”. The child is considered a family member. The most you can hope for, is to send the child back or pay for therapy and pray the situation, improves.
The use of language is very deliberate.
Yes. But try to prove it. These rescues cover their arses.
“…hapless adopters” The definition of hapless: without luck, unfortunate. What a way to be defined as that person who leaves a shelter with a potential monster. I’m reminded of the hapless woman who brought home a pit bull that killed her elderly mother the same day. I always knew there was something ominous about this breed, but didn’t find the evidence until I found this website. So, yes, education is key for the hapless who have been sold a bill of goods. And, yes, the media needs to step up and expose this travesty. I’m not sure they ever will. They continue to call the mauling and killing “accidents.” Their business is ratings, and cute dog and cat stories bring in the lots of viewers. Pit bull attack stories bring in venom and threats.
“I was sold a dog that murdered my grandma by an organisation that knew it mauled at least two people before they sold it to me then deliberately covered-up that information when making the sales pitch”
Kinda takes the spin out of it
Thank you, Colleen, for bringing much needed attention to this insidious scourge.
If a breeder lied about the breeds of dogs within their breeding program, people would be trying to get them shut down and rightfully so. But shelters on the other hand are encouraged to lie about the dogs they put on the floor; breed, temperament, history, everything so long as they can keep their save rate. This is yet another reason I will never support animal shelters. I won’t be giving money to people who are willing putting people in danger because they care more about their save numbers and the opinions of overly vocal pit nutters than keeping the public safe.
Thank you for this. I watch Philly’s ACCT shelter via Facebook, and they are routinely rehoming and transferring to rescue groups dogs who bite and attack humans, who bite and attack and kill dogs and cats. It is no longer remarkable or surprising – every single time I look at their volunteer pages, their “Pen Pal” page, or see a rescue group bragging about their Philly save, there it is, buried in the dog’s original assessment and history. At least they are still releasing that information online. Many shelters, including NYC’s ACC, are no longer placing any information online beyond the usual marketing blurbs about how every dog is ‘sweet’ and ‘slow to warm up but once she does she’s your friend for life.’
Example of ACCT’s recent dog-killer grads: ACCT recently released an older “shepherd mix” (very clearly a tan pit bull mix with atypical rough coat and some dark points) named Shy to a western PA shelter. The dog had been surrendered for attacking 2 cats and a dog in the family within 2 weeks, and biting the owner’s grandchild out of nowhere. Shy was adopted out, killed a dog, and returned. ACCT then allowed a rescue group to take it; they adopted it out to a woman with a small child. The adoption announcement on the western PA shelter’s FB page was commented on by volunteers who’d marketed Shy – they appeared to be laughing at the idea of that dog living with a little girl.
We went from an era when deaths from shelter dogs were unheard of to an era where dogs routinely consume human body parts and are allowed to live.
Remember the husky that pulled the next door kid under the fence and chewed off his arm?
…Oh, it figures — Philadelphia has the crazy-eyed dog some fool put a hair band on…We also have the craziest rescue — remember “RIP Jake” in September 2019?
I want to know what happened to all the commercials for poverty-stricken children…I never see them anymore — is our culture so emotionally bankrupt that we care about rescue dogs more than rescuing children???
In my city, the largest in my state, EVERY boilerplate stunt by the no-kill mob is being pulled to repeal the long-standing and successful BSL. I’m fighting it with keystrokes but I’m not sure how this will turn out.
Here’s the irony – the shelters are still PACKED with non adoptable pits and mixes – what did the repeal of BSL in 9 cities accomplish? The SPCA is begging on the evening news every night to take these “terrier mixes” off their hands.