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Jacksonville Humane Society to stop labeling mixed-breed dogs

The Jacksonville Humane Society is doing away with labels for mixed-breed dogs in 2017.

The organization said using labels such as Shepherd mix or Retriever mix is unfair to dogs and adopters.

The humane society hopes the change will encourage people to judge a dog by its behavior rather than its breed label.

"The truth is that when a dog comes in, our staff typically just make their best guess about breed based on the physical characteristics they see. This is a pretty inexact science," Denise Desiler, executive director of JHS, said. "The majority of dogs that enter our shelter are mixed breed and to arbitrarily label them based on looks seems unfair to dogs and adopters. Looks don’t equal behavior."

For more information, visit jaxhumane.org.