sometimes shelters do know the breed of the dogs but thats very few and far between, when i adopted my pup they said he was a boxer/border collie.... i dont see it i never saw it...i also think some shelters like to stay away from bullie breeds just because they have an unfortunate name so if they can say its something else and its not that obvious its a bullie breed they will say whatever will help adopt them out. IMO

 

I'm not sure how our shelter picks determines what breed dogs are. Sometimes, it's obvious (like the cocker spaniels or the poodle).... sometimes I think they guess based on looks.
I do think that they will stray away bully breeds in general... even if it's obvious that there is some bully in there. It kind of bothers me, but when we have people come in asking specifically for "pit bulls" (and usually they seem like the kind of people that don't need pit bulls...) we just tell them we don't have any, and they go away.

 

A lot of the shelters I've been to have a poster with a whole bunch of dog breeds on it, and it seems that they typically compaire them to the poster and just guess. One time while I was visiting a shelter, a man brought in an adorable stray puppy that was brindle, very lanky, and had floppy "airplane" ears, and they got all the staff and a bunch of people in the waiting room to help guess what breed he might be. I suggested a whippit/pitbull mix, but I think they went with Basenji or something.

 

at our county shelter its a guessing game, and the shelter guy barely knows squat about dog breeds. He tried to list a Wired Haired Dachshund as a Snauzer(sp).

 

We have a poster and they guess. It's awful... We had a very labradoodle looking 'otterhound' the other day.

Generally the shelter workers and volunteers know nothing. It's frustrating to no end. I listened to this guy (who is an employee not a volunteer mind you) talk a lady out of adopting a cocker spaniel because they were 'bred to herd sheep all day and have a ton of energy'. Um.... WHAT!?

I try to correct where I can and some of the other volunteers/workers are very knowledgeable. The problem at our shelter is the ones that are typically dont' write the cards...

 

I get mildly annoyed by this, because EVERY big (read: typical puppy-mill/BYB bred) Pom is a "German Spitz".

 

My shelter just picks whichever is easier to "sell". If it's a husky or malamute, mix or pure, they'll call it a wolf hybrid (which are illegal to own without a proper lisence, so I don't see how they can get away with adopting them out to the GP). All pit bulls and most of the bullie breeds/mixes are listed as lab mixes. And anything that's small and fluffy is usualy listed as some sort of poodle mix (this one in particular screws them up because they have lots of small dogs cramed into one cage and it's difficult to tell which dog was listed as what when it's obvious there's only one poodle mix in the cage, but there's cage cards for six of them to be in there).

 

I should also mention that our poster is a poster of drawings and it must be from the 70s. It's really not very good, plus all the images are about an inch and a half long. So they look at that and then pick the breed/breeds. Not the best method.

 

So how did the '25% of all shelter dogs are purebred' statistic get figured out then? Did the survey just ask shelter staff what their estimation was? If so, that's not saying much for the accuracy of that number.

 

No idea. I know our 'purebred otterhound' was definitely NOT a purebred anything. And a lot of the dogs we get in are so badly bred you can't tell WHAT they are. I've worked with so many papillons, owned them, shown them, and I know a lot of rescues and puppymill dogs that aren't near to standard. We still got in a dog that I couldn't tell if it was a papillon or a chi or a mix of both. The only way to know for sure would've been to have it brought in with a pedigree stating it was purebred.

So yeah... no idea how they come up with those stats.

 

A lot of guess work. When I got Smalls I was told she was a Dachshund. I knew even when picking her up she was NOT a Dachshund. Some people are better at guessing, and others just seem to know about 10 breeds and every dog is a mix of two of those

 

Sometimes the know as they have the paperwork from the owner surrender. If the owner says it's a lab mix, they're probably going to go with it. Strays have to be pure guesswork. There really is no other way to know short of expensive blood tests.

 

I was visiting our local shelter a while back and they had a "hound mix" that was clearly a Plott hound. (Esther is a mystery hound.)

I said to one of the staff people, "Your hound mix is a Plott hound." She said, "Uh, huh."

Funny thing is, that dog was an owner surrender. It's possible the owner didn't know what they had, which would explain why they surrendered it (or, rather, why they got it in the first place.) It's also possible that the shelter knew what they had, but weren't about to label the dog as a breed that can be challenging.

 

The one beef I have with the rescue I USED to foster for is that they would get obviously pit mixed dogs/puppies, and they would label them lab mixes or boxer mixes. They said it was easier to get dogs adopted without labeling them pits, but at the same time, that's pretty deceitful if anyone actually falls for it.

My biggest LOL was when we met a guy with an obvious Bernese Mountain dog mix. More berner than not. When I commented that he was beautiful and said "What do you think? I definitely see the Bernese, but there is SOMETHING else?" and he says "Shih tzu and rottweiler." I was like "Oh? Shih tzus are very small and they have distinctive facial features.." and he says "Well, that's what the guy I got him from said he was."

 

Are Plott hounds challenging? I think my mutt is a Plott hound mix, so I was just curious.

The first vet that saw my Georgia right after she was picked up as a stray thought she was a four-month-old GSD mix. Once she was cleaned up and perhaps gained a little weight, she became a two-year-old Plott hound mix.

 

It's pretty much a best guess which sometimes isn't anywhere near accurate. Some of the labels I've seen I can only wonder, people really don't know their breeds. In other cases the owner brings the dog in and says what breed(s) the dog is, sometimes they are right and other times they don't really know either. There are also pregnant females that come in or females with pups so they at least know the moms breed so like GSD mix the pups might be labeled as if the mom is a GSD.

In your situation I would have asked the shelter about the breeds. How they know, they could have been dropped off from an oops litter in which both parents were known? There are times it seems shelters pick the most exotic to make them seem more appealing maybe and other times the dog is of a rare breed but the shelter is clueless that there are more then 12 dog breeds that exist in the world.

 

Shelters are funny *smiles*. I got my dog from a shelter 3 years ago after a couple decided they didn't want him anymore, I cringe to think of them because this was the third dog they'd given up AND they got another pooch a few months later.... even wanted to do a puppy date if you can't believe that. Sorry I'm sidetracking here *lol, so Taylor was taken to the shelter as a puppy with the rest of the litter and after a few weeks the "mom" of the litter went back to the family. So at that point the shelter had the breed of the mum and the birthdate of the litter on file and proceeded to adopt out the litter. Well when Taylor came back they recognized him, and the people as you can imagine, and for some unknown reason somewhere in the process him age and breed had changed?!?! I adopted him given the info that yes, he's such and such a mix, 6 months old, and had been returned to the shelter by a couple who didn't want him anymore. Well this place that I lived was a very small, small town so I met 3 of his littermates and his previous owners in the time that I was there. Turns out he was 9 months old when I got him, not 6 months and the breed mix was totally different. His littlermates look like black labs and outweigh him by about 30lbs.

 

It's pretty much a best guess which sometimes isn't anywhere near accurate. Some of the labels I've seen I can only wonder, people really don't know their breeds. In other cases the owner brings the dog in and says what breed(s) the dog is, sometimes they are right and other times they don't really know either. There are also pregnant females that come in or females with pups so they at least know the moms breed so like GSD mix the pups might be labeled as if the mom is a GSD.

This happens sometimes too. We had one litter that looked almost like pure pointers, BUT they came in with mom who was clearly mostly pit bull. So the pups were labeled as pit bull mixes because that was the only thing we knew about them. They had very few pit bull traits as far as their looks go. We also have occasionally gotten in some very random purebred pregnant dogs. Last fall we had a pregnant female shiba inu and she'd bred with who knows what. Her pups were born at a foster home and raised by a worker. They didn't look much like shibas at all, really.

Some pups we get from people who know the breed or think they know the breed. A lot of the puppies we get were bought at the pet store so they come with their mix known. (Most are small designer mixes).

Then there's people like my cousin who adopted what was labeled as a JRT mix puppy only to have it grow up into a pit bull. I think that one was deliberate as pit bulls were illegal where he lived.

Oh, and Ron my uncle just recently got a new Plott hound puppy he's hunting with. When I met her, I thought of you.

 

Well after posting this I was curious. I pulled out Sebastian and Luna's paperwork from the Shelter. They are listen in the paper work as Boxer/Aussie...

I'm thinking these people just didn't care what they wrote lol. At first it was Anatolian Sheppard, but Aussie was so much easier to write...

But yeah. It seems everything is a Shepard or Lab mix on shelter sites.

 

All these ignorant and semi-ignorant breed guesses by shelter employees are perfect arguments against BSL.

 

What is BSL ?

 

Breed-specific legislation - the practice of banning or restricting certain breeds or whole groups of dogs because of a perceived threat.

Sometime dogs that look vaguely like pits or rotties are banned because of physical resemblance - not becasue of any history of aggression by the dog, or even the breed.

If rotties were banned in my area, there could be an issue with Esther, though nobody really knows what she is.

 

Our shelter avoids labeling anything as a pit bull and we get loads of them. Tehy are usually labeled as boxer mix or lab mix, unless it is so celar that pit bull is the undeniable breed.

Little dogs are also a challenge for them sometimes. We got our giant pom because they were convinced that she was a papillon mix, maybe long-haired chihuahua. We've done the DNA...pomeranian. And interestingly enough, one of the young kennel attendants who was around when we first went to get McKenna out of her kennel for a visit commented "Oh, you want that yappy pomeranian?" So it is clear that there are people who know what they are talking about, but they are obviously not the ones writing the profiles in the computer.

Black dogs are always labs (my co-worker now has one that you could put a saddle on and call it a pony!), catahoula hounds (sp?) are the new rage for anything they don't know, anything with a spotted tongue must be an akita mix, and there is no rhyme or reason to spanials.

 

anything with a spotted tongue must be an akita mix

See here anything with spots on the tongue (any black at all) must be a chow chow mix.

 

I hate to ask the obvious question, but how do you feel about the ethics of intentionally mislabeling the breed so as to improve the dogs chances of being placed? I mean, people come in looking for a dog and are relying to a degree on the info from the shelter. Labs and pit bulls are pretty different breed wise. I'm somewhat shocked by the comments above.

[I have nothing against pit bulls].

 

I think a lot of shelters just guess based on what they look like. You'll see that at some shelters just about every mix is a lab, ausie or pit bull mix.

Some veterinary offices do offer dna tests, and you'd be surprised on how much of a mix your mix really is (if you ever feel like paying an absurd amount of money for it!)

Shelters do NOT test dna... since they work on donations it is HIGHLY unlikely that they do dna testing (even if they say they do! - cause it's expensive)
You could be hitting the nail on the head with saying that they choose unusual or "exotic" breeds to get more people interested in them!

I hate to ask the obvious question, but how do you feel about the ethics of intentionally mislabeling the breed so as to improve the dogs chances of being placed?

I don't think people working at shelters or rescues are "intentionally" mislabeling dogs to improve their changes of being placed... I just think a lot of them lack the knowledge to accurately identify most or certain breeds. Believe me, I've had people come up to me and my doberman asking me if it was a pointer/rottweiler/hound-dog!!!! (and this is only cause I've hadn't had it's ears cropped)
You'll be surprised how many people wouldn't know a poodle from a saint-barnard!

 

Most shelters, and IMO most vets (unless they are also dog show people) don't tend to be very good at breed guessing. Dog show folks tend to be better at this, probably because we have studied dog structure and we have seen so many purebreds repeatedly that their mannerisms and subtle traits are more clear to us. I can recognize a Golden mix, for example, even if it looks little to nothing like a Golden at a glance- just by the way it walks or a certain subtle trait or look it has.

The spotted tongue thing is interesting LOL since Chows and Shar Pei are the breeds with black tongues. I've never seen a black tongued Akita.

Also, it ticks me off to no end when dogs are called "Saluki mixes" or "Whippet mixes" or "Anatolian Shepherd mixes" (or any other rare breed that is definitely not out knocking up strays) when it's pretty obvious you're more likely to win the lotto than to find an Anatolian Shepherd mix.

 

If a shelter has information about a dog (say, that it's a purebred Plott hound) and doesn't disclose it to prospective adopters, shame on them. It would seem to increase the chances of the dog being returned or rehomed yet again.

If the dog is immensely strong, able to leap 5-ft fences without blinking, has a very high prey drive and may be inclined to howl a lot, I think people need to know that.

That's what I mean by "challenging" when I refer to Plotts. I wouldn't trade Esther for anything, but I knew what I was getting into (more or less) when we adopted her.

 

The shelters here don't seem to know much about mixes either. Nala was listed on her kennel as Australian Shepherd mix. After reading the paperwork further it said AussiexRottie. Yeah right. If they make the guess on looks, I have no idea where Rottie came from. Aussie doesn't even make sense, because she's marked like an ACD.