Adoption decisions are personal, and the odds are stacked against everyone involved.
Shelters and rescues do enormously difficult work under real constraints — limited time, limited staff, and often only a short window to get to know a dog before finding it a home. Adopters, meanwhile, are making one of the most personal decisions of their lives, usually after a single visit.
Even with the best intentions on every side, that combination makes a good match hard to guarantee. When a placement doesn't work out, it's hard on the dog, the adopter, and the organization that worked so hard to place them in the first place. We think this is a problem worth understanding carefully, not guessing at.