Behavioral assessments used to make euthanasia decisions in shelters are subject to significant validity concerns, and inaccurate assessments may lead to the deaths of adoptable dogs.
Shelter behavioral assessment is a welfare-critical decision point: the result determines whether a dog lives or dies. The high stakes make the validity of assessments enormously important. Evidence that commonly used protocols have poor predictive validity means some dogs assessed as unsafe are euthanized when they would have been safe adoptees. Equally, dogs with genuine behavior problems may be missed and placed in homes where they bite. Improved, validated assessment tools combined with foster-based evaluation — seeing dogs in more naturalistic settings — improve both welfare outcomes and adoption safety.