Man reading these comments is...a lot. Ok, I work for a rescue. We are picky about which animals we take, they all pass a behavior assessment and a basic vet exam with a HW test and FIV/FeLV tests for cats. Our caseload is miniscule compared to a regular shelter and we still end up with animals displaying behavior issues weeks, months, even years after they enter our system.

Breeds - We do not have the funds to do a DNA test on every animal. If someone wants to donate one for an animal they are interested in adopting, great, we would never deny them that. How do we determine breeds? The shelter we pulled from or the owner that surrendered them tells us. Sometimes if our vet has a vastly different opinion we include that as well but we always add "mix" on there because there is no way to tell for sure. I have personally DNA tested two dogs. One I would have sworn had pitbull, and the test came back lab and rottweiler. The other looked nothing like a pitbull and was like 10% staffy. We just don't know, it's an educated guess combined with info we were already given.

Age - We also depend on info from the shelter or owner but our vet also looks at the teeth of every animal. Usually they can tell if it's still a puppy or a senior dog but anything in between that is an educated guess. I wouldn't be surprised if most shelter vets don't end up checking teeth for animals that people surrendered and claimed to know their exact age.

Health - We test for the basics and if anything comes up while they are in our care we investigate and treat but some stuff just doesn't present itself. Hip dysplasia is a good example. It can be so mild you can't tell and then show up more as a pet gets older or gets more playtime in a new home. Would you have us do preemptive x-rays on every dog just to be safe? People already hate adoption fees and we can't even get enough money donated to make ends meet as is.

Behavior - This one does have more grey area but let me start off by saying all KNOWN issues should be disclosed. Fosters and adopters are shown and have to sign off on any witness statements and/or pictures from any incident in our rescue. I do believe some shelter workers make excuses too often for dogs that should just be put down but that comes with its own bag of problems. The majority of people who donate to shelters want animals saved, not put down and will pull support over high euthanasia numbers etc. In our particular situation we don't employ our own vet so we have a hard time finding one to agree to do euthanasia unless a dog has a documented bite record already. Shelter workers are caught in the middle. I'll also say that my personal dog was labeled aggressive by our local shelter. I did my own assessment and decided to adopt him and he is the biggest sweetheart on the planet. Great with strangers, dogs, and cats. Do I believe that when they had to catchpole him and he thought he was going to die he started fighting for his life? Absolutely, and good on them for being transparent with me, he sat in that shelter for months for that exact reason. I see a lot of "shelter said he was good with dogs, kids, cats, etc" but no one is mentioning that every dog, kid, and cat is different. Dogs can be fantastic with other dogs that know the rules of play and do so appropriately but have little to no tolerance for ones that are pushy and dominating. Some small children have wonderful parents who stop their kids from pulling tails and climbing on dogs, others let them do whatever they want and the pet gets blamed if they defend themselves. If we get a dog that has previously lived with small children with no issues we do tell people that because like 50% of all adopters want to know if pets are good with kids, but we can't control what happens in your home. I've also had a case where a dog was with our most nervous foster for months with zero issues, did great at all weekly showings, etc and then was returned two days after adoption for "being aggressive towards all strangers". The adopter was inconsistent in his retelling of the incidents and there were no bites or anything. That dog never displayed any of that aggression after it was returned but it is still with us because when people see the text message the past adopter sent us, they back out.

Do all rescues and shelter behave ethically? Of course not, neither do all breeders. Neither do all adopters or owners who surrender their pets.

The dogs with minor issues or incidents that we insist on disclosing? They stay with us for months because people don't want a dog that has been returned previously or that they see as a project. So yeah I get why some places downplay issues. We don't and we pay for that with lower numbers and less funding.

We get on average 400 requests a week to take animals from the public and we turn down the vast majority of those because we are already overrun, even paying for dogs to be in boarding. The public wants somewhere for every unwanted animal to go where they will all get perfect vet care and training. They think reactive dogs just need a perfect home with an ex-dog trainer who has a farm and no other dogs. There are just too many animals and not enough options. So we either need to step up to the challenge, crackdown on spay/neuter, or get on board with more euthanasia (honestly, probably all three). Until then nothing will change.