One in a Million

By Marilyn Marks

Goldie is a very lucky dog.  She’s one in a million.  Well, no one can really calculate what her odds were, but she’s lucky to be alive – and happy and healthy.  Her story can help others understand the plight of ownerless dogs.
Alive does not equal happy and healthy.  Ownerless dogs need……. owners.  Shelters (dog pounds, rescue groups, humane shelters, etc.) have limits to the amount of time and money they can provide.   Time spent in the shelter is a double-edged sword – the perfect owner might walk through the door tomorrow (or the next day or the next….) but the time spent in "captivity," without the companionship and daily routine of a household, eventually drives dogs crazy.  A life spent in jail, however well-intentioned, in the end is arguably worse than no life at all.
So, which dogs get a tomorrow and which don’t?  If you had to choose, what would your criteria be?   Will this 8-year-old dog be adopted or should the space go to a younger, more likely candidate?  Will an owner be found who can safely handle that Chihuahua with a tendency to guard her owner (and who’s liable if not)?  What about the dog with a housebreaking problem or medical issue?  Is there an owner for this dog out there?  And when will they walk through the door?
"Temperament testing" is a way for shelters to make decisions more uniformly, less emotionally.  There are a variety of these tests around, with documentation as to their viability becoming ever more available.  Dogs show themselves to be generally adoptable, adoptable under special conditions (i.e. no kids), borderline (has some training issues) or unadoptable (too aggressive or ill for safe placement).  Each shelter, given its resources, must decide whose time is up.  [Note:  Unfortunately, Connecticut’s public pounds are not provided with enough resources to do anything and therefore have a short, mandatory length of sheltering.  Fortunately, many officers place good dogs into private adoption programs.]  These tests are not perfect but they do provide needed structure to a difficult decision.
Back to Goldie.  She’s a Chow Chow, a breed with an aggressive reputation.   A temperament test would show whether this individual had the usual Chow tendencies or not.   Goldie would not have passed a temperament test.  She was reserved and aloof and, at 10-months-old, under socialized, disinterested in and afraid of most people, with behavior that says "Back off or I’ll bite."   Fortunately the right owners came along to champion her at the right time.  At first she acted as if she would bite them, but quickly decided they were safe and ok.  She doesn’t like strangers and she gives all the signs and signals (which a test would pick up) that she wants you to go away or she’ll bite.  However, she never bites.  People can pet or grab her and, other than trying to get away, she does nothing – never has, and, at age 7, probably never will.  
Who knew?  How many dogs who "tell" you they might bite never do?  The answer is, very few.  Goldie’s owners know she is one in a million, that if it weren’t for all the luck coming together at the same time, Goldie would have been and should have been euthanized.  Not because she is bad, but because the chances of her making the average family happy and the chances that she would never actually bite anyone were slim. 
Temperament testing isn’t about being right; it’s about hedging the odds.  It’s about making sure that those dogs available to you or your neighbor at the shelter are least likely to bite your child or attack your friend’s dog.  Stories like Goldie’s, of dogs who turned out fine despite the odds, abound, and the more resources given to dog rescue, the better the chances are for more dogs.  When resources force a life and death decision, it is reasonable and responsible to choose based on the likelihood of a safe and happy future for all involved. n
Marilyn Marks, a Certified Pet Dog Trainer, owns The Good Dog Spot! A Community Center for Dogs & Their People, in Bloomfield, offering training, day care, boarding and play groups.