San Francisco Animal Care and Control (SF/ACC), San Francisco's only taxpayer-funded animal shelter, has a long history of using out-of-date, archaic "temperament" tests to determine whether a shelter dog or cat is suitable for adoption. Research shows that these outdated tests do not reliably assess shelter animals' behavior and are poor predictors of an animal's success in a new home. Dogs and cats who "fail" these inaccurate tests are not put up for adoption and  result in the needless killing of hundreds of San Francisco's shelter animals every year.

The archaic temperament tests at SF/ACC include:

* the "assess-a-hand", which involves offering a large, fake hand to the animal. This is threatening and can cause even very calm animals to react;

* touching a cat's paws – something that many well-adjusted cats don't like;

* testing dogs for so-called "food aggression", which is a behavior that may be caused by the shelter environment itself;

* holding cats up to another cat's cage to determine if a cat is "cat reactive", which is not the natural way a cat would encounter another cat;

These and other tests that, done in a stressful shelter environment, do nothing to assess the animal's true temperament, but instead scare the animal and ensure that he will be labeled unsuitable for adoption.

Numerous research studies have found that temperament tests like these are not reliable predictors of an animal's behavior and result in needless killing of San Francisco's shelter animals. Furthermore, virtually all of the "failed" dogs and cats taken in by rescue organizations are placed in forever homes and never display any dangerous behaviors – a clear indication that these tests are invalid and should be stopped.

Unfortunately, very few of the cats and dogs that fail these "temperament tests" are taken in by the small-budget rescue groups, who have limited space, and hundreds of saveable animals are killed at SF/ACC because these invalid tests have incorrectly labeled them unadoptable.

SF/ACC has continued to use these temperament tests because they pursue an ultra-conservative policy fueled by ungrounded and overblown fears of liability.  The very small amount of caution these tests may provide is largely outweighed by their negative impact on the animals, for whom these tests are a virtual death sentence.

These antiquated temperament test protocols at SF/ACC were enforced by former Animal Care Supervisor, Eric Zuercher, who recently resigned on October 14, 2015. We are pleased to see Zuercher move on and hope this will signal the end of SF/ACC's antiquated temperament test protocols, which result in the death of hundreds of saveable shelter animals in San Francisco every year.

Please sign this petition to support the end of antiquated temperament tests for dogs and cats at SF/ACC and help end the needless killing of shelter dogs and cats in San Francisco.