This is a true case. But it’s not rare. However– people should know the TRUTH.
In the PDF below, one will see that even horrifically bad biters can be given to rescue, and not necessarily disclosed. Feel free to share with all non rescue people.
In California under the law, shelters/pounds can give rescues the animals which are biters and those that fail temperament testing. Usually in the first round cut, many dogs are killed if they do some slight growling, or they snap, or they are very dog aggressive or people aggressive. You may have seen the fake hand used by S. Sternberg to test dogs. Not all shelters use it but they will usually test for food aggression and whether the animal will allow you to touch its head, face, mouth, paws, tail. Most of the testing is not done by professional testers, but by people who have worked at animal control and are familiar with animals.
Regardless of how dogs come into shelters (surrendered, stray, seized) — most of the public does not know, especially in California, that failing temperament testing means the animal can still BE “rescued.” We have access to various information on failed temp animals [even now] and in doing rescue work [only occasionally] we usually do not take failed temp test animals.
Although this particular dog was given up to rescue (without disclosing the biting history), this dog should not have been given to a rescue, but should have been put down. The project said they would put the dog down after dog was returned.
Linked here BITING RESCUE DOG PDF
http://www.vetmed.ucdavis.edu/clubs/shelterdog/ The project is no longer functioning, they only do dog training.
“The goals of the organization were to save the lives of shelter dogs, educate participants, and increase the awareness of pet overpopulation. Shelter dogs, generally young adults, would undergo temperament evaluations and be placed in foster homes. The foster families brought the dogs to weekly obedience classes and worked with the dogs on house training and socialization. Following graduation, the dogs were placed in permanent homes.” Since 2003, the Shelter Dog Project stopped functioning as a rescue group.
Pet Defense 