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BBC ran an article about a dog that couldn't be adopted because he didn't respond to any commands. The dog was sheltered for over a year until someone realized that he came from a Polish home and could only understand Polish. He was then thought to understand English as well and had a bilingual understanding of the commands. The dog is now expected to have a new home shortly.

I have a bilingual dog myself - he understands both Polish and English since I use both languages intermittently, obviously that was nothing new to me. Now here is what struck me in the article the most - this collie has been kept in the shelter for four month, and they took time to train it. Many shelters in the US keep dogs for a couple weeks then kill them. Consider this: you go on a vacation and your dog escapes the house as your housekeeper leaves the door open. He gets picked up, the housekeeper is scared and hopes he comes back. He doesn't. You come back and go to the shelter only to fight out that he was just put to sleep a couple of days ago because there was no one to adopt him....