Success Stories for Canine Risk Assessment
C-TAG helped save Calleigh from Death Row
Alerted to the the controversy surrounding "Calleigh", a female purebred American Staffordshire on death row in Kingston, Ontario, ISCRA Lead Assessor Tamara Follett donated a free K9 Risk Assessment for Calleigh. Here is an excerpt from the Executive Summary of the assessment provided to owner Jaimie Brierley and used in Calleigh's court case:
This evening, I conducted a formal canine risk assessment on Calleigh, a 25-month-old female dog that I had never met or come into contact with. The Canine Threat Assessment Guide (C-TAG), which is based on the Failure-Mode Effects Analysis (FMEA) model, was the methodology used. The evaluation was video-taped for justification of scoring and ease of review in a courtroom setting... Calleigh's risk score was 9, classifying her as a C-TAG Category 1: "Benign Dog". Category 1 dogs are not recommended to be subject to additional controls beyond a standard municipal dog license and associated regulations(emphasis added). A formal Canine Risk Assessment Report, a copy of Calleigh's score sheet, and a copy of the video footage of the assessment will be burned to disk and submitted for use in Calleigh's defense.
Thus, according to her score, Calleigh doesn't even require muzzling. Of interest is the fact that her owners could have dropped her low score even lower, had they decided to put in 2 gates to complete Calleigh's "Multiple Levels of Containment". This demonstrates how the C-TAG can be used to educate and encourage owners to better contain their dogs. More significantly, it shows how a given dog's risk score can be reduced by the dog's owner. Behavioral Assessments do not offer this.