Denver Columnist Now Convinced that Visual Breed Identification is Impossible

A Denver Post Columnist, Bill Johnson, is no longer convinced experts can identify breeds of dogs based on visual ID.

He's not alone.

In his column earlier this week, Johnson talks about a study he took part in. Johnson, along with about two dozen animal shelter directors, volunteers, dog trainers, and other professionals in the animal welfare industry took a simple test: View 20 dogs on a videotape, identify each as a purebred or a mix, and what breeds of dogs were involved in the mix.

Johnson, a casual dog owner, got 1 of the 20 dogs correct -- and that was only because it looked like his own dog.  It turns out, that most of the professionals in the room only did marginally better -- with most getting around 3 or 4 correct.

The study was part of a presentation that was given by Victoria Voith, a professor of Animal Behavior at the Colleg of Veterinary medicine at Western University in Pomona, CA. According to Voith, shelter workers are generally only correct in their breed identification about 25% of the time.  The general public is much worse at it (a problem that I'll discuss more in-depth tomorrow).

"I started this study," Voith said, "because I am a lover of German Shepherds and was appalled that every short-haired breed with brown hair was called a German Shepherd.  It simply isn't so."

More on Voith's initial study can be found here.

One dog trainer noted, "I always though I was really good at identifying breeds, and cities are killing dogs based on uninformed visual identification?  That's pretty scary. It's heartbreaking, really."

It is.

Many cities across the U.S. have passed breed bans based on dog bite studies based on visual breed identification. Obviously, the validity of all of these studies is definitely called into question.

Meanwhile, they are now taking pets from family homes, not because they are aggressive, but because they look like they might be one of the banned breeds -- and may only be correct 25% of the time.

Anyone who has watched cities deal with breed bans knows this causes problems in most cities. Breed ID issues have caused problems in Omaha, Toledo, Salina, KS; Lakeland, OH; Sioux City, IA; ruled by judges to be "too vague" in Miami,  Independence, MO;  and often in Kansas City, KS.  

Breed identification issues continue to be costly for cities to enforce, continue to waste animal control resources, and continue to affect innocent dogs and dog owners. I have no idea why any city would choose to have to deal with breed ID issues for non-aggressive dogs instead of just using behaviorally based ordinances?  It makes absolutely no sense....

Comments

[Lynn]

An interesting letter from the Deputy Mayor of a town in the UK regarding where they stand on BSL:
http://www.bulliez.net/forum/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=14540

Lynn

[KC KS Kills Dogs]

Just for the record Mayor Reardon of Kansas City, Kansas USA seems to think that he should look into providing more training on "breed identification" for his ACO's.

His statement was made after he had been read verbatim the NACA stance on the challenges of BSL and specifically breed identification.

It was as if the words just whistled in one ear and out the other.

[Sara]

Hey, is that Bill Johnson who used to write for Rocky Mountain News?

[Rinalia]

The only problem I had was the DNA testing. There is no DNA test for American Pit Bull Terriers. One covers American Staffordshire Terriers, but most APBTs do not have AST's in their pedigrees.

But I'm glad to see another reporter jump on the bandwagon. The ultimate point is still valid - visual identification is fraught with problems and should NEVER be a determination in the behavior of a dog, let alone whether they get to live or die.

[Brent]

Sara -- most likely as the two newspapers merged most of their staff a couple of years ago.

Rinalia, I know what you're saying on the DNA test. I am not convinced of how valid the DNA tests are -- and I don't know how far back in history they go. For example, if someone takes in a Great Dane for testing. Will it show up as 100% Great Dane? Will Mastiff and Greyhound show up also in it's background? And I'm not even sure which would be the "right" answer...

I think the APBT and AST situation would similar to that -- but am not quite sure how it works. That aside, the breed identification failures are just crazy -- and I have no idea why any city would choose to deal with that issue vs just focusing on a dog's behavior.

[EmilyS]

well since the AST had no breeds added to it, its DNA should be identical with the APBTs. But it sure would be interesting to test some to see what happens!

I'm extremely skeptical about the validity of these tests though and I fear that for every "pit bulls" saved by a test that shows it's a lab-ridgeback (or whatever) mix, more will be killed when the test shows it's predominately AST/SBT/ABPT.

I think there's a trap for us here. The issue should be breed identification anyway.. it should be breed behavior.

Though anything that might open the tiny brains in Denver to the reality that they are killing dogs that are NOT pit bulls is probably a good thing.

[Lisa]

One of the biggest problems with BSL is that it hinges almost entirely on equivocation, so anything that helps to point that out and illustrate that breed discrimination is capricious and inconsistent and just plain wrong is ultimately a good thing.

[Cecil Moon]

A couple years ago I took a dog to a shelter in Carthage, MO and the attendant identified about half the young dogs there as Labs. As a former Lab owner I can assure you there was not a Lab in the house.

Thank God we don't pick our other "best friends" on such flimsy evaluation of their breed. Who cares as long as they are eager to keep that tail wagging.

[Brent]

Emily, I don't disagree that we may be opening pandora's box with this -- but it is what it is. I am not scared of the facts - I can't help but think that the more information is out there the more in our favor it will be...assuming anyone really cares about reality any more. One thing is for sure, it is causing headaches for cities right now....