When you adopt an adult dog your taking your chances on it having already developed bad habits, in allot of cases that’s the reason it was dumped in the first place. Trying to break an adult dog from bad habit’s is difficult and sometimes impossible unless your going to spend 24 hrs a day working with it. How a dog acts in a kennel behind wire with 30 to 40 other dog’s is not the same as when he gets to your house and starts setting up his territory. I’ve spent most of my life raising and training bird dog’s and I never start with an adult dog. I start my dogs at 10 to 12 weeks old and by 6 months they’ve learned their job and are well disciplined. What I’m saying is I’ll waste no time on a dog that somebody else let get out of control. If a person wants to adopt an adult dog your taking your chances and be ready to get rid of that dog if the problems are too great. It sounds harsh but it’s no harsher than being dumped at a rescue center because your owner didn’t care enough about you to make sure you were properly disciplined. I’m not going to blame rescue centers for misleading people about a dog since they’ve only seen it in their environment not yours and that makes a huge difference.
I agree with what you’re saying, and I might add.. the negative behaviors might not have even become manifest until after adoption.
Sometimes these adoptions don’t work out. Governors host many visitors, and if the dog is aggressing on the guests, it’s not going to be a good fit. It’d be better off as a one-person dog somewhere on some acreage.