By guest host Linda Douglass:
With the barking, the wire fences, the dingy blankets, and the concrete, there is more often than not, a sadness that is the dog shelter. And why not: each year, 4 million dogs are brought to shelters nationwide — and half are euthanized.
But one animal-shelter worker is on a mission to change all that. By analyzing the way dogs are tested as potential adoptees and the adopters themselves, she’s working to make the dog shelter a more promising meeting place for man and canine, rather than a last stop for dogs.
This hour On Point: A new kind of dog shelter.
Quotes from the Show:
“The goal of a good temperament or personality test is to expose the dog to stimuli that the dog may encounter on the outside.” Diane Mollaghan
“A lot of individuals come to shelters and choose a dog based on looks and not on the behaviors associated with that dog.” Diane Mollaghan
“People are not remembering the needs of the dogs.” Charles Siebert
Guests:
Diane Mollaghan, Graduate Student in Psychology at the University of Texas in Austin, and an animal behavior researcher at Town Lake Animal Center;
Charles Siebert, contributing writer for the New York Times Sunday Magazine. He is at work on “Humanzee,” a book about humans and chimpanzees.;
Stephen Zawistowski, executive Vice President at the ASPCA.
