Labels, Not Looks, Matter Most at the Dog Shelter

An American pit bull terrier. (Credit: David Robert Perez/Shutterstock) When potential dog owners visit a shelter, a whole range of factors affect which lucky animal they take home with them. Personality, activity levels, age and breed all go into the equation, depending on what pet owners are looking for. What pet owners are not looking for, however, are pit bulls. As a new study from researchers at Arizona State University shows, labeling a dog as a pit bull, all behavioral and personality observations aside, is enough to drastically alter how it is perceived. In a series of four studies, researchers examined how dogs labeled pit bulls were perceived, whether being labeled as a pit bull affected shelter stay length, and whether removing breed labels from shelters affected adoption rates. Their results were published Wednesday in the journal PLOS ONE.