Recently, we’ve noticed a disturbing trend of some people falling back on old habits of randomly labeling dogs. These habits often relate to labeling dogs “pit bull” or “blocky-headed-whatevers.” It’s not new information that these labels are entirely arbitrary and applied inconsistently based on a person’s personal opinion.
In 2019, we spent some time in South Carolina and visited a lot of shelters and met with a lot of great workers and voliunters – but, we saw a lot of inconsistent labeling.
We used some images of the labeled dogs to show how inconsistent and subjective breed guesses are.Â
We grouped our findings by label to show how different most of these dogs are from one another. Get ready, because there are a lot of pictures of a lot of dogs – and a lot of labels that are about to make you very confused!
Animal Farm Foundation (AFF) is a 501(c)3 nonprofit organization built on the principle that all dogs are individuals. Our Foundation relies on science-based information about animal behavior and public policy, including breed-specific legislation and housing insurance discrimination, derived from our subsidiary National Canine Research Council. AFF’s team offers regional and national initiatives that support dogs and the people who care for them in their communities.
NYS Department of Agriculture and Markets Shelter/Rescue Registration: RR286
