The fate of two American bulldogs in the care of the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (SPCA) rests in the hands of a representative who evaluated the dogs yesterday after arriving from the United States.

The National American Bulldog Rescue Association (NABRA) specialist was expected to determine whether his organisation, which has expressed interest in taking the animals to the US, will take them after all.

If the evaluation found any problems or other reasons why NABRA will not take the dogs they will be euthanised. The dogs were brought to the shelter about four months ago by their owner because he could no longer keep them as he was moving.

The SPCA will not be comfortable putting the dogs out for adoption especially if NABRA finds that there are problems with them.

Last week an independent official, well-known Bermudian dog trainer Vincent Madeiros, conducted a temperance test on the dogs.

Prior to the test, SPCA chairman and Bermuda Veterinarians Association head Dr. Andrew Madeiros said he would love to find that the dogs were good for adoption

However this week he said: "He (Vincent Madeiros) indicated the same type of issues that we had identified ourselves." He added that the dogs could not be adopted out to anyone off the street.

"We have not identified anyone here that is willing or able to take them and that has not changed," he said.

When contacted, Mr. Madeiros said it was up to the SPCA to divulge the details of the evaluation.

Last week Dr. Madeiros said the female dog was extremely fearful of everything while the male was extremely aggressive toward small dogs and cats.

Dr. Madeiros and SPCA inspector Dr. Charles Whited also last week expressed the opinion that if the dogs were to be removed from the controlled and professional environment they are currently in, they could regress to behaving as they did when they were first surrendered to the shelter and be a potential risk to people and other animals.

However the suggestion of euthanising the dogs and Dr. Madeiros' character assessment of the two dogs, Sensie and Rizlah, sparked discord among SPCA shelter volunteers.

They claimed the female dog is now friendly to strangers and other dogs and that there is an overall "lack of passion" for the animals at the shelter which led to the SPCA's views regarding them

But, Dr. Madeiros said there was no evidence that the dogs were "horribly abused" prior to being brought to the shelter, as one volunteer had claimed.

When asked what exactly the NABRA representative will be looking for he said: "I guess they will assess the dogs for places and look for any problems they might have."

He said that it was his understanding that the dogs would be placed in homes and they would be assessed for suitability for that environment.

In a previous interview Dr. Madeiros indicated that the SPCA would be rejecting responsibility for Bermuda's problems by sending the dogs overseas .

But last night he said: "The difference in this situation is that these people have actively and aggressively pursued these dogs. We have not called them and said, `Can you take these dogs?'

"They have contacted us expressing a strong desire to take these dogs and what we are doing is ensuring that these dogs are suitable before they take them.

"We said we would not allow the dogs to be sent to them unless they were assessed here.

"We don't want to have these dogs travel to the Sates and then they find they can't place them or will have problems with them."

Should NABRA determine that they want to have the dogs travel to the US, they will be responsible for all costs incurred.