> Sounds like the shelters need to give people a trial period with the adult
> dogs.

  There are shelters that do this.  My finace and I went to look at a litter of shepherd cross puppies in Howard County (MD).  The puppies were all gone, but they had an older pair of littermates that would have fit the bill (collie/GSD/houndish). The shelter people offered to let us take one or both puppies, Bonnie was allowed to freely roam the shelter's play yard, and I liked the way the dogs were managed.  The shelter was a converted small house - one "room" was a kennel with about eight cages, one room was the front office, one for vet stuff, etc.  There were five dogs there - the two big puppies, a cocker, a small papillon-type dog, a medium size raggedy dog, and a larger lab mix.
  The dogs were allowed to play together and socialize in the yard, instead of being crated in cages all day.  one of the attendants said that they often let a dog "loose" in the place for a day or so to see if it was housebroken (gave signals or just went wherever).  They also did a modified temperament test on new arrivals, so they could actually help people pick out a dog with a correct temperament - more like a foster home than a shelter, really.

Jana
 &Bonnie