I look nothing like my mother. She had hair so dark brown that it was almost black and deep brown eyes. I have medium brown hair, grey eyes and got none of her features. When I was a toddler, a cashier at the grocery store asked her if she was my babysitter. My brother, however, looks just like her. The eyes, the hair, the teeth that didn’t need braces, he got all of that. I got my dad’s genes almost 100% for appearance, and I look so much like his sister that people think I’m her daughter. Mentally, however, I’m my mother’s child. I inherited her ability to read incredibly quickly, her love of words, her sense of color, her glitches with math, her love of art and her cat lady tendencies.

I am a great example of how genetics are a crapshoot. No one looking at me would guess half my genes came from someone who looks like my mom did. The same can be true for dogs. Judging a dog on appearance is a slippery slope. There are certainly breed tendencies — anyone who has ever met a purebred border collie can likely attest to that — but I have met many purebred dogs over the years who do not fit their breed stereotypes. I once had an Akita named Rosie as an office foster who was the friendliest, most outgoing dog we had in the shelter at that point. She had none of the aloofness usually attributed to Akitas, none of the standoffishness with new people and animals. She loved strangers and belly rubs, would accept pets from anyone offering them, and was a playgroup all-star, making friends with every dog she met. My own redbone coonhound is purebred as near as I can tell without doing her DNA, but she is virtually mute, defying the loud hound stereotype (much to my disappointment). She doesn’t bark, even when my lab is hollering fit to wake the dead at whatever is happening outside, and she bays only once in a blue moon when there is some kind of interesting wildlife in the yard.

Studies have been done on visual breed identification, and what they found is that even those of us who work with animals for a living like veterinarians, shelter workers and dog trainers are only able to correctly identify a prominent breed in a mixed breed dog’s genetics 27% of the time. That indicates a very unreliable methodology.

So, why am I telling you all of this? Because the response to the question many of us in sheltering get all the time, “Why are there so many pit bull type dogs in shelters?”, is not a single factor answer. One facet of it is that they are popular. There are pittie lovers just like there are enthusiasts of other dog breeds. Also, genetics are funny. You cannot predict with any certainty the physical appearance of mixed breed dogs. We have known this for a while; there was a fascinating study done in 1965 crossing purebreds, a basenji and a cocker spaniel, and their puppies looked not a whit like either breed. And this is a case where the parents were purebred — the waters get even muddier if the parents were mixed breed themselves.

At a previous shelter, I had the fun of doing DNA panels on 10 dogs who staff felt looked like pit bull–type dogs. The tests showed that only five of the dogs had any American pit bull terrier or American Staffordshire terrier in their genetic makeup at all and only three had either breed making up 25% or more of their genetics. The other dogs who had no American pit bull terrier or American Staffordshire terrier were a fascinating mix of breeds, including everything from chihuahua to mastiff to catahoula leopard dog and several dozen breeds in between. For many of them, I couldn’t see any of the breeds listed in their results when I looked at them, much like how even if you squint hard at me, you won’t see a woman that looks like my mother, though half my DNA came from her.

Many people interpret a short-coated dog with a square, blocky head and a thick chest as being a pit bull, despite there being many other breeds and combinations of dog breeds that can result in the same characteristics. That being said, the truth is that many dogs in shelters actually are pit bulls or pit bull mixes. Thousands of pit bulls and mixes live happily with their families across the country, like any other dogs, and are surrendered by their families to shelters or lost as strays, just like any other pet. Some live in terrible conditions, condemned by humans to be fought in dog fighting rings, but most are never a part of any such thing and are ordinary pet dogs and subject to the same changes in circumstances.

We work very hard here at Midcoast Humane to look at the pets in our care as individuals, to see them for who they are, not make assumptions based on their appearance. We look at their behavior; how they interact with the animal care team, with our clinic staff and with our volunteers. If we have information from their previous families or finders, we look at the details of that and try to match what we know of that pet with what adopters are looking for in their next pet.

Like most shelter workers, I have a couple dog soft spots. I am a terrible sucker for hound dogs. I love their long, soft ears, and if they are talkative, I fall totally in love. I turn to mush for rottweilers, and the bigger their head, the mushier I get. I had a rottie/pittie mix years ago, and she was the smartest dog I’ve ever met and I have a soft spot for dogs that remind me of her. More than any other, however, I have a soft spot for pit bull–type dogs. Shelter workers regularly care for those that have been given up, discarded, neglected and sometimes actively harmed. We fall in love with the spirits of those we care for, rarely with their appearances. It is unsurprising that we all root for the literal and proverbial underdogs and, in many ways, that includes pit bull–type dogs.

If you are interested, there are some great resources out there to read. “Pit Bull: The Battle over an American Icon” by Bronwen Dickey is a well-researched and well-written, though very sad, history on the pit bull in America, examining breed specific legislation and our cultural and media responses to pit bulls. I had to put it down several times to take a breather when reading it, but it was well worth the struggle. For those who fancy themselves experts at visual breed identification, this is an excellent puzzle to work through: love-a-bull.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/findtheAPBT.jpg. Only one dog out of these 25 is an American pit bull terrier. No cheating, but the answers are at the bottom.

Jess Townsend is executive director of Midcoast Humane.