Walk through the kennels at any shelter and you will see breed labels on every door. Lab mix. Shepherd mix. Pit bull. Chihuahua. These labels feel like useful information. They help potential adopters and fosters know what they are getting into. They give staff a shorthand for describing the animals in their care.
There is one significant problem with them: research consistently shows they are wrong a large percentage of the time. And those inaccurate labels have real consequences for the dogs wearing them.
How Shelters Assign Breed Labels
Most shelters, including Memphis Animal Services, do not have the resources to DNA test every dog that comes through their doors. Breed identification is done visually, by shelter staff, often quickly, in a stressful intake environment where the dog may not be behaving or appearing at their best.
Visual breed identification sounds straightforward. A dog with a blocky head and a muscular build gets labeled a pit bull. A dog with floppy ears and a brown coat gets labeled a hound mix. A dog with a fluffy coat and a pointed snout gets labeled a shepherd mix. Staff do their best with the information they have. The problem is that what a dog looks like and what a dog actually is genetically are frequently not the same thing.
What the Research Says
Several peer-reviewed studies have looked specifically at whether shelter staff can accurately identify dog breeds visually, and the findings are striking.
A widely cited study published in The Veterinary Journal tested visual breed identification by shelter staff, veterinarians, and volunteers against DNA analysis. The results showed that visual identification agreed with DNA results less than half the time, even among experienced professionals. Dogs identified as a specific breed often had no detectable DNA from that breed at all.
A separate study led by researchers at the University of Florida found that shelter staff identified dogs as pit bull type at significantly higher rates than DNA testing supported. Many dogs labeled as pit bulls had no pit bull ancestry whatsoever when tested. The visual cues staff were using, head shape, coat color, body build, were not reliable predictors of actual genetic makeup.
Less than 50%
The rate at which visual breed identification by shelter staff agreed with DNA analysis in peer-reviewed research, even among experienced professionals.
This is not a criticism of shelter staff. They are working with limited tools in a high-volume environment. It is a criticism of a system that attaches significant consequences to a label that is essentially a guess.
Why It Matters: The Real Cost of a Wrong Label
A breed label is not just a description. It shapes how potential adopters and fosters perceive a dog before they ever meet them. It can trigger breed restrictions in rental leases and HOA agreements. It can affect insurance coverage. In some cities it can even determine whether a dog is legally allowed to exist within city limits.
The pit bull labeling problem
No breed label carries more consequence than “pit bull.” A dog labeled as a pit bull faces dramatically lower adoption rates, longer shelter stays, and a higher likelihood of being euthanized for space than the same dog with a different label. Studies have documented this disparity clearly and consistently.
The cruelest part of this is that many dogs labeled as pit bulls are not pit bulls at all. A dog with a short coat, a broad head, and a muscular build might be a Lab mix, a boxer mix, a bulldog mix, or a combination of breeds with no pit bull ancestry. But once the label is applied, the consequences follow.
A dog does not know what breed it is. It does not know what the label on its kennel says. But that label determines who stops to look at it, who keeps walking, and sometimes whether it makes it out of the shelter alive.
Labels create expectations that become self-fulfilling
When a dog is labeled as a high-energy breed, staff and volunteers may interact with them differently, give them less calm handling, expect more behavioral problems. When a dog is labeled as aggressive or difficult based on breed assumptions, they may receive less socialization, fewer outings, and less enrichment. Over time, a dog treated as a problem can start to look like one, not because of their genetics but because of how the label shaped their environment.
Fosters and adopters screen out dogs they never meet
A person who scrolls past every dog labeled as a pit bull or a shepherd mix on the MAS website may be scrolling past a dog who is genuinely a perfect fit for their household. The label becomes a filter that removes the actual dog from consideration before anyone has a chance to meet them.
What DNA Testing Has Taught Us
As commercial DNA testing for dogs has become more affordable and accessible, rescue organizations and researchers have learned some genuinely surprising things about the dogs in shelters.
Many dogs who look like a single breed are actually a combination of five, six, or more different breeds, none of which are present in high enough concentration to produce the visual characteristics of any one of them. The physical traits that make a dog look like a pit bull or a Lab or a shepherd can emerge from a completely different genetic background through what geneticists call phenotypic convergence: unrelated genes producing similar physical outcomes.
A Real Example of How This Works
“A dog arrives at MAS with a short brown coat, floppy ears, and a sturdy medium-sized build. Staff label it a hound mix. A rescue volunteer thinks it looks more like a Lab mix. A potential adopter sees the listing and assumes it is too energetic for their household. DNA testing later reveals the dog is primarily Chow Chow and Poodle with no hound or Labrador ancestry at all. The dog’s actual temperament is calm, people-oriented, and excellent in an apartment. Three people made assumptions based on a label. None of them were right.”
What This Means for Fosters
As a foster, you are in a unique position relative to breed labels. You get to find out who the dog actually is, not who the label says they are. The dog who gets labeled a high-energy shepherd mix and passed over by a hundred potential adopters might turn out to be a calm, easygoing companion who sleeps twelve hours a day and wants nothing more than to sit next to you on the couch.
Your observations, your photos, and your descriptions of the dog’s actual behavior in your home are infinitely more useful than a breed label for helping a dog find the right match. When you write your handoff notes, lead with personality and behavior rather than the label on the kennel card. “This dog is calm indoors, walks well on a leash, and is gentle with strangers” tells an adopter far more than “Lab mix” or “shepherd mix” ever could.
How to Look Past the Label When Choosing a Foster Dog
- Ask your coordinator about the dog’s actual observed behavior rather than relying on the breed label to predict temperament
- Request any available behavioral notes from shelter staff or previous fosters who have interacted with the dog
- If breed restrictions in your lease are a concern, ask whether a specific dog is likely to be identified as a restricted breed on sight, since the legal question is often about appearance rather than DNA
- Consider meeting the dog before committing rather than filtering based on the label alone
- When you share the dog with your network or on social media, describe what they are like rather than leading with the breed label
Should Shelters Stop Using Breed Labels?
This is an active debate in the animal welfare world. Some shelters have moved to describing dogs by physical characteristics and observed behavior rather than assigning breed labels, and early results suggest this approach can meaningfully increase adoption rates, particularly for dogs who would have been labeled as pit bulls under the old system.
Other shelters argue that people use breed labels to search for dogs and that removing them makes it harder for potential adopters to find what they are looking for. The counterargument is that if the labels are wrong most of the time, what they are helping people find is a fiction anyway.
MAS continues to use breed labels as part of their intake process. As a foster, you cannot change that. What you can change is how much weight you give those labels when you are deciding which dog to take in, and how prominently you feature them when you are helping that dog find a home.
The Dog Behind the Label
Every dog in the MAS system is wearing a label that may or may not reflect who they actually are. The label got there quickly, in a chaotic intake environment, assigned by someone doing their best with imperfect tools. It will follow that dog through their entire shelter stay, shaping who stops to look at them and who keeps walking.
You have the chance to look past it. To meet the dog, not the label. To spend a few weeks figuring out who they actually are and then tell that story to the person who will love them forever.
That is what fostering does that no kennel card ever can.
Look Past the Label. Foster a Memphis Dog.
The dog behind the breed label at Memphis Animal Services might be exactly who you are looking for. Apply to foster today and find out for yourself.
