Key point in your post Tass which I omitted in mine. Reading what to other people may be insignificant or minor signs.

Most people have not been exposed to sufficient number of dogs, across sufficient number of breeds, in sufficient different contexts to be able to detect some of the more subtle signs which indicate a problem.

And it is the SUBTLETY of these signs which are key.

ANYONE can identify overt aggression etc and it is thus simple for people to do the "right thing" ie avoid etc.

But when you read the many posts of people who say things like "he bit without warning" in dogs they have lived with since birth, that tells you that these owners have absolutely NO observation skills and cannot identify when the dog is feeling uncomfortable in order to avoid escalation.

Imagine then, a dog who may have had the overt signs chastised out of him (eg growling) being put in an inexperienced home with children.

Sue Sternberg put it rather dramatically but, IMO, very well thus:

A family adopting a dog from a shelter that implements no formal temperament testing procedure is equivalent to that family walking into a shop filled with guns of all sizes, shapes and makes.

The family take it home.

You have no idea if the gun is loaded. You have no idea if the gun is cocked. Is there a safety lock? Is it engaged? Does it just shoot a white flag that reads "Bang"! or does it shoot real live ammunition? How many bullets are in it?

A dog can be just as deadly. While I think dogs bring much more pleasure than a gun ever can both produce the same horrifying harm.

Overkill? I do not think so, think about some of the attacks we have been discussing only just recently.

A dog is equipped with 42 lethal weapons, many people forget about this.

To UNDERESTIMATE the responsibility of adequate assessment of dogs is to do a grave disservice to both dogs and those who take them into their homes.

Every time I assess a dog for Breed Rescue, I have this in the forefront of my mind.

It may appear to be over dramatic to some, well it aint to those who are at the sharp end.......

or they may have little experience to spot the subtlety of some of the signs

perhaps they maybe just don't care as much as we do

not everybody knows how to help a dog with problems so may not step in when a dog wasnt happy about somthing so its a lot safer to only home dogs without "problems"

Logistics:

100 dogs in rescue. 50 homes waiting

50 dogs with a problem
50 dogs with no problem

It's got little to do with lack of experience, in my opinion

Easy? No. Common sense? Yes

Having to put to sleep dogs in rescue is something we all find abhorrent, but realistically, this situation is a symptom of the overpopulation of dogs we currently have.

It's easier not to think about it. It's easier not to have TV programmes that show that reality, but at the end of the day, that's what it is - reality

I'm not sure it's that simple and straightforward tbh.
A Pug with problems would easily find a home, where as a staffie with a lesser problem would no doubt end up being euthanased.
It's a logistics problem in many cases, the less common breeds would stand a better chance of passing a behaviour assessment than a common breed.
My sons girlfriend works in rehoming and does behaviour assessments for a very well known London dogs home and she says my Diesel would struggle to pass and he's a staffie with no problems, Tucson my Pug on the other hand would sail through and she's flippin mental.

The sad part is that these decisions have to be made when, quite often, simple rehab solutions are available, but it's easy to see why they are made and it's wrong to blame those who have to make them - they are just making the best of a very bad and terribly hard job

Very true, people don't choose to work with dogs so they can put them down.

It tends to be very much harder to honestly make that recommendation than to pass the buck as the previous owner(s) of that dog may have already done in some rescue dog scenarios.

Owners who approach a behaviourist as a last resort, when they already think a PTS is the only real outcome, instead of at the first subtle or minor sign of trouble, may well have let things progress beyond a point of no return, particularly after they may have worsened the situation by inappropriate intervention.

I agree with pretty much everything SB said in post #11 but, aside from dogs chastised out of warnings, IME there are also some dogs who will just skip the preliminaries and go straight to the bite, gaining the major advantage of surprise attack, just on learned behaviour and increased expertise, as they are no longer warning or bluffing, steps intended to avoid actual physical conflict where possible.

DA dogs can also very quickly escalate to this in some cases.

Goodness me Millie would fail their behaviour assessment for sure! She would show anxiaty around new people almost instently as she is weary of strangers (and quite right too))

Makes you wonder if the English RSPCA does the same thing?? This is one of the many reasons I don't like the RSPCA. I stopped watching the english one and stopped supporting the rspca when I watched an episode where a young owner could clearly not look after either dog and the officer inspecting the place made the decission to take away the cute fluffy dog and leave behind the troublesome staffie which should have been taken away as well. It made me feel angry because the young man had learning difficulties and could not seem to understand what he was doing wrong. The inspecter took away the easy managable dog and left the owner with a dog that seemed too difficult for him to control himself.

As long as the assessment is based on knowledge of dogs and not on false science (if you hold a pup on his back and he struggles he`s dominant) I have no problem with it.
I don`t think one can assume that every behaviourist / trainer / helper at every Rescue is enlightened. I`ve come across some people working in rescue I wouldn`t trust a stuffed trout to.

Just as an aside.

The reason the other dog was taken away was not, if I remember correctly, anything to do with behaviour.

It was to do with the care requirements of a dog with a coat rather than an SBT.

Sometimes it is not BEHAVIOUR that is the issue but the actual husbandry requirements of certain breeds and dogs.

HTH