1. Introduction
In Australia, the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (RSPCA) is a National, not-for-profit organisation that accepts approximately 46,000 dogs per year [
1]. A 2014 study [
2] found that these dogs, most of which were adult, were most commonly admitted after being collected by local council officers as strays (34%). Others were presented by members of the public as strays (24%), owner surrenders (19%), or euthanasia requests (4%), with a small number being brought in by Humane Officers, employees of the RSPCA tasked with rescuing animals from situations where their welfare may be compromised (6%). Other studies have shown that relinquishment reasons are usually human-related (unwanted, changed circumstances, financial, owner’s health, household problems) but medical issues and behavioural problems also lead people to relinquish their dog [
3,
4,
5,
6,
7,
8,
9,
10]. In the Australian study [
2] most dogs were either reclaimed (32%) or adopted (43%), with 14% euthanised. Reasons for euthanasia were dog behaviour (53%), dog health (23%), and owner requested (20%). If euthanased for behavioural reasons, it is likely that the dog displayed severe aggression, fearfulness and/or escaping behaviour.
Many shelters attempt to identify behavioural problems by continually monitoring behaviour and by formal behaviour assessments (BAs) while dogs are in care [
11,
12,
13]. The behaviour assessments aim to identify behaviours that may cause problems in the dog’s future home, and to give an overview of the dog for potential adopters [
14]. However, their ability to predict future behaviour or behavioural issues is questioned [
15]. There is a concern that dogs that appear aggressive during a BA are being unnecessarily euthanased because they would not necessarily be aggressive in a home environment, and that non-aggressive dogs may be adopted out only to become aggressive at a later stage in the new home.
Life in a shelter is stressful and traumatic for dogs due to sensory overstimulation, social isolation, change/loss of control of daily routines and the novelty of the environment [
14,
16,
17]. Stress has wide-ranging impacts, including on cognitive ability, behaviour and the dogs’ emotional state [
18,
19,
20]. Therefore, a standardised BA conducted in shelters may not provide an accurate representation of the normal behaviour of the dog in a more stable and settled home environment.
Research conducted by Mornement et al. [
14] in Australia compared the results of a Behaviour Assessment for Re-homing, K9′s (B.A.R.K.), administered in shelters, with results of a post-adoption survey. They reported that the only predictable outcomes were friendliness and fear-related behaviours. However, other behaviours, in particular aggression and food guarding, are rare post-adoption; Mohan-Gibbons [
21] found that only six out of 96 adopted dogs were reported to display at least one incident of food guarding in the first 3 weeks, and at 3 months the adopters reported no food guarding behaviours at all. There was no evidence in this study, or a subsequent study [
22], that food guarding increased return of the dogs to the shelter. In addition, injuries to staff, volunteers and adopters were rare and did not change if the food guarding test was omitted from the assessment.
‘Time alone’ tests have been used to identify dogs with separation-related behaviours [
23]. Separation causes dogs to exhibit anxiety when away from owners or people in general; it is expressed as vocalisation, destruction of their environment, excretion, drooling, attempting to escape and depression-like responses [
24,
25]. Most shelters include a time alone test in their BA, during which the dog is placed alone in an unfamiliar room and observed for up to 10 min [
23]. Dogs with separation-related anxiety spend the majority of the time vocalising, orienting to escape, panting and engaging in destructive behaviour.
Despite the current controversy about the use of BAs in shelters to gain an understanding of a dog’s behaviour and to identify any major or minor behavioural problems, we consider that assessments still have a role to play [
26]. They can be used to identify stable behaviours. To further our understanding of how well BAs can predict dog behaviour in adoptees’ homes, we aimed to identify whether the standard BA protocol conducted at a Queensland shelter 5 days after admission predicted behaviour in adopters’ home environment, as assessed 1 month post-adoption.
4. Discussion
The aim of this paper was to evaluate how well the standardised behaviour assessment (BA) protocol currently used in a Queensland RSPCA shelter predicted post-adoption behaviours. In general, the ability of the standardised BA protocol to predict specific behaviours post-adoption was only somewhat effective. It appears, then, that the standardised BA may, as previous authors have outlined [
16], be useful as a tool for providing an overall measure of dog behaviour, particularly with respect to friendly, fearful, and anxious behaviour, but that it requires supplementation with other sources of information. However, our study was unable to adequately assess whether behavioural problems, specifically the identification of different categories of aggression, possessive behaviour (resource guarding), or separation anxiety, can be predicted from shelter assessments, since dogs displaying these behaviours were not rehomed.
There are several possible explanations for why the assessment was not more strongly predictive of our outcome measures. One constraint is that we cannot predict how an owner’s behaviour or personality, and other animals/individuals in the household, can influence/affect the dog’s behaviour post-adoption. Such effects may be substantial. Due to this, it may not be realistic to expect to be able to predict with accuracy behaviour over time.
A further explanation is that the standardised protocol may be inadequate as a tool to assess complex canine behaviours and behavioural problems either because of the structure of the assessment and/or its administration or due to the complex nature of such behavioural problems. We argue that the instrument is unlikely to be inadequately designed as it draws upon countless research studies and has been used and modified over many years [
14,
27,
28,
29,
30]. The administration is also unlikely to have been inadequate, due to the standardised nature of the tests. Staff were trained and evaluated in the shelter, with the majority of the dogs in the large sample being assessed by the same individuals.
Another possible explanation is that due to the nature of canine behaviour, only some aspects of behaviour are stable [
31,
32]. Some aspects of canine behaviour may not be predictive in a single test, including aggression or other behaviour problems. Consistent with this idea was the number of new owners who reported their dog moving towards an individual in a way that concerned them, even though these dogs did not show these behaviours in the shelter assessment, or were not identified by shelter staff as displaying aggressive tendencies outside of the assessment. Dogs that displayed aggressive tendencies in the BA, or at other times during their stay at the shelter in the Queensland facility, were reviewed by a consultant for further testing. Such dogs were either then enrolled in a behaviour modification program or deemed to be unsuitable for adoption. Indeed, this study is similar to other studies in the area of canine behaviour assessment in shelters [
12,
21,
22], where only dogs that did not show signs of aggression were made available for adoption and therefore included in the sample.
This suggests that there is a high possibility of a number of false negatives in the initial BA, which therefore is not offering a valid index of aggression. As seen in numerous studies, to reliably identify aggression and diagnose its causation is difficult, due to its infrequency and the nature of behavioural problems. Canine aggression is complex, and may be context specific [
33]. The belief that one can assess a dog and diagnose it as aggressive is incorrect and should not be done. A specialist trained to identify and classify canine aggression would be in a better position to have a comprehensive understanding of physiology, behaviour and neurology, thus allowing a more nuanced diagnosis to be drawn [
34]. Even in an assessment used primarily for identification of aggression, for example, the Dutch Socially Acceptable Behaviour (SAB) test, a portion of aggressive dogs remained undetected and the test was substandard for the assessment of types of aggression unrelated to fear [
35]. This leads to the idea that fearful and anxious behaviours may be more stable and easier to detect than forms of aggression that can be motivated by numerous factors [
17].
The final possibility is that canine behaviour may be predictable and the standard BA protocol used may be adequate at measuring certain categories of common/prominent canine behaviours (Friendly, Fearful, Arousal, Anxious), due to the common occurrence of these behaviour in everyday populations. However, due to the administration of the assessment after 5 days in the new environment, the tests may produce deceptive results. While many shelters maintain the highest standards of animal welfare, dogs still suffer from social isolation, abnormal sleep patterns, auditory pollution, olfactory overstimulation, and emotional stress, especially if individuals have no prior experience in shelters and do not habituate using positive coping mechanisms. The stressors that are inherent in any shelter may force some dogs to employ negative coping mechanisms (avoidance, inhibition or appeasement) as an outlet rather than displaying aggression [
36,
37]. This may especially be the case after surrender and over the first few days of entering the shelter, with some dogs likely to experience acute stress and social isolation [
17]. Research into this area has found that shelter dogs showed more aggression when tested 2 weeks after being admitted to a shelter in comparison to 1–2 days after surrender [
38]. Furthermore, only a few studies have studied the relationship of aggression with welfare standards for dogs [
17,
20] and whether the behaviour is due to environment stressors. Evidence in the literature suggests that stress can have an effect on cognitive function, negative emotional state and behaviour [
18,
19,
20]. This implies that standardised canine BAs, timed incorrectly and used to make decisions about dogs (rehomed, trained or euthanised), may give false information to shelter staff.
Consistent with this possibility, recent studies into the test used to identify food resource guarding found the prevalence of issues post-adoption were low and that removal of the test did not increase the likelihood of food guarding in the new home [
21,
22]. The reason for this result can be identified in the complex aetiology behind food resource guarding. It is defined as the use of avoidance, threatening or aggressive behaviours by a dog to retain control of food or non-food items in the presence of a person or other animal [
39]. It is not surprising that many dogs are so labelled in a shelter environment, due to the high occurrence of acute stress from sensory overload causing dogs to feel threatened and in turn aggressive. However, outside of the shelter environment, in a non-threatening and predictable environment, this reaction decreases. In addition, other types of aggression, such as territorial and maternal, remain very difficult to assess in shelters [
33,
40].
We advocate that shelters must look for a new approach that allows an improved ability to identify behaviour problems in a more stable environment. One such solution currently implemented in RSPCA Queensland shelters is the use of a foster care system, in which dogs that are unable to cope in the shelter are housed with foster carers until they are able to be adopted. This solution allows dogs to live in a stable environment with minimal exposure to stressors that may otherwise lead to the deterioration of the dog’s behaviour thus leading to behaviour problems. Furthermore, it allows shelters to house more dogs able to cope in the shelter environment, as well as individuals requiring behaviour modification and further testing of behaviour problems. In addition, RSPCA Queensland uses a qualified behaviourist to help to understand dogs that are identified in the behaviour assessment as having behavioural issues. The consultant conducts further tests to better identify the behavioural problems and implement behaviour modification programs with the use of qualified dog trainers. The dogs are constantly reviewed and evaluated to monitor progress over time.
However, implementing these solutions requires resources that most shelters do not have. Most shelters have financial, time and staff constraints that hinder them utilising such techniques. The authors understand that no one BA protocol has the ability to accurately predict every future behaviour, but these assessments can be used as one tool in conjunction with continual monitoring of behaviour and health of dogs in shelters, to gain an overview of the dog’s behaviour and identify dogs that require further testing or behaviour modification. Additionally, BAs can be used as monitoring tools to identify dogs not coping in the novel shelter environment. This, in conjunction with surrender information, veterinary monitoring and evaluations, in-kennel scoring from staff and volunteers, and behaviour modification should help develop a better system for shelters. To achieve this, continuous improvement and studies into dog behaviour in shelters are required.