What a lost opportunity! This manual contains a great deal of valuable and useful information but is unfortunately completely ruined. This is because one of the fundamental foundations of the whole process is the unscientific, unproven and invalid dog assessment - DTA IV. There seems to be an expectation that because the assertion of its validity is made often enough in so many places in the manual then that will make it factual and so everyone will then believe it to be true. Anyone who has any kind of a scientific background knows that it is NOT true. For something to be scientifically valid it must be able to be duplicated by others using the same methods every time. This also would mean that dogs which this test determines to be the unacceptably aggressive i.e. A9+ should actually be shown to be aggressive in their new homes. Since the BCSPCA doesn’t allow these dogs to go to new homes, they are euthanised. Therefore, there is no way to prove that the test has any validity at all. The same goes for the Orange zone dogs, A4-8, that are also euthanised because the BCSPCA determines that treatment resources are not available. It appears that the main focus of the Manual is to justify why so many of the dogs that come into the care of the BCSPCA are euthanised rather than re-homed.

Some Extracts from the Manual . This is the manual that I understand replaces the CAMP Manual but not the Policy

There are 6 main goals:

1. Ensure accurate identification of adoptable animals & make certain they are never euthanised.
What a shame that this whole Manual is based on the "unscientific" and unverifiable program of DTA IV.

Page 2 Phase 1- Goal #3 - Ensure that non-adoptable dogs are euthanised and not kept at the shelter until an incident forces a decision.
This appears to mean that the BCSPCA never gives a dog an even chance!

Page 3 Dog Sense Concepts: Concept 1 - Assessment vs Decision making. However, we can assess temperament with proven effectiveness.
Nowhere have the data or the sources which contain the data been made available. This is therefore an unproven assertion. What little data is available is insufficient to demonstrate the validity.

We cannot decide to change the results of an assessment based on personal or philosophical preference. The results provided by a good assessment tool such as DTA IV only reflect what is.
Again, nothing to prove that it is a "good" assessment tool.

The validity of assessment tools are best measured and debated by scientists while decision-making is best measured and debated by policy-makers within an organization.
There has been no debate by scientists of the assessment tools, at least before their implementation at the BCSPCA. Any concerns that have been raised, which should have been or could be debated are ignored by the Society.

Page 4.Concepts 2 - Evidence Based. We must be confident that our temperament assessment accurately predicts post adoption behaviour. The development of evidence-based tools (validated) usually requires several years of research and clinical trials.
If this were in fact the case then, once again, where are the results of the studies, where are the clinical trial data. When the information is asked for the result is only silence!

"Instruments to measure aspects of human personality are subjected to rigorous reliability and validity testing to ensure that the tools do what test developers claim they do. If we hope to design a useful evaluation test for shelter dogs, we would be wise to adopt psychometric theory rather than work towards our goal intuitively and haphazardly. Psychometricians painstakingly analyse test content, administrative procedures, reliability coefficients, scoring methods, and finally validity assessment before applying a stamp of approval to a human personality test" (Nunnally & Bernstein, 1994.) This is the exact process that our new dog assessment (DTA IV) has gone through.
But, once again, where are the studies and all the information that would confirm that this in fact was actually carried out. There certainly hasn’t been anything to demonstrate that it has been done, only the statement by an "interested" party that it has been done. (The developer of the test!

Page 6. Summary of Dog Sense Practice. On the second day, the dog assessor conducts the temperament assessment, obtains a score for each trait, (low, medium, high) and determines which behaviour problems the dog is prone to. Once all assessments are finished for the day, the assessor completes the recommendation forms in preparation for the decision making consultation with the Branch Manager. Within 24 hours ....the Branch Manager ....(3) makes a euthanasia decision for dogs with behaviour problems for which there are no treatments or resources to treat the dog.
This is for the ORANGE zone dogs. The Red Zone dogs don’t even get a chance!

Quality control for shelters using DTA IV is ongoing, The Animal Management Coordinator collects all intake forms, temperament assessments and post-adoption behaviour questionnaires.
This isn’t Quality Control! All it does is collect paper. If it really was evaluating the effectiveness or accuracy of the assessment process, it would require a great deal more.

Page 18 The Dog Temperament Test DTA IV has demonstrated high validity and reliability.
Where, show us the proof! The only information on the 211 dogs assessed by the BCSPCA is useless since: a) the number is too small to be statistically significant and; b) only 106 of the dogs were adopted by new owners and nothing is said about the 105 that did not!

Page 19. Conducting DTA IV. When - Day 2 in the kennels (e.g. a dog admitted on Monday is assessed on Tuesday). At least 30 minutes after feeding and after a walk. Ensure dog does not need to eliminate at time of testing. Because the assessment has been validated under these conditions. The protocol must be followed or predictability may be affected.
I wonder who is the lucky individual who gets to walk the RED zone dogs before the assessment is done? If those dogs are not able to be walked then the "predictability of the assessment may be affected", i.e. give the wrong result. Doesn’t this one statement call into question the whole assessment process?

How - Testing takes about 15 minutes.
That is all the time a dog gets to decide it’s fate!