One Snarl and They're Out

This doesn't leave much room for even normal behavior. I'm not in the "it's not the breed, it's the people camp" all that much but this seems pretty unforgiving.

Humane Society dogs face life-or-death audition
Safety fears doom many potential pets

John Faherty
The Arizona Republic
Nov. 9, 2007 12:00 AM
Baby, a pit bull, walked into a room with cinder-block walls and a concrete floor for her behavior evaluation at the Arizona Humane Society shelter.

The dog let the handler open her mouth and tug on her ears. She didn't bark, growl or snip when her paws were pulled and her tail was tugged.

This was a good dog but not good enough.

"With pit bulls, she would have to be perfect. And she's not," said Marilyn Gooding-Stueland, supervisor of behavior programs. "She will be humanely euthanized."

Five minutes later, Baby was dead.

There is a heightened interest in these evaluations after a 4-year-old girl was killed by her pet dog Monday afternoon in the north Valley.

More than 4.7 million people in the U.S. are bitten by dogs each year, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. There are on average 16 fatal dog attacks annually.

The Humane Society screens dogs put up for adoption to try to ensure safety, but sometimes, even those evaluations cannot predict an animal's behavior.