I highly recommend Dee Ganley's training manual for people working with shelter dogs. She has pioneered shelter programmes in the US and travels around the country and internationally training shelter workers in these techniques. Listed here:
http://deesdogs.com/training_manuals.htm
Also see:
http://deesdogs.com/shelter_evaluations.htm
I went through a weekend seminar with her and learned so much about training generally and especially, on dealing with shelter dogs and their particular issues. She is amazing, she can get sheler dogs to sit and wait quietly for their kennel door to be opened in under 3 minutes work per dog; really astonishing to watch her walk down a whole line of barking, jumping shelter dog kennels and as she stops at each kennel, have the dog quietly sitting so that she can enter and leave the kennel, within minutes. All positive training.
I do take a different perspective on breed bans though, which comes from personal experience. Personally I feel some breeds were genetically engineered to be aggressive and violent (just as cavaliers are innately friendly and sweet natured and clingy). I know many rescue people whose attitudes to pit bulls in particular, but also many staffies -- eg believing they are unfairly castigated -- changed when they saw the dog go from calm and friendly to nearly killing any dog that happened to come within reach. Hence I know a lot ofvevry experienced dog people who support breed bans or very tight breeding controls on certain breeds. I know of too many incidents where they have killed or maimed local people's dogs in my area too, to the point where many elderly people only walk their own dogs while carrying sticks. I think too many lines, perhaps the majority, are now too aggressive as an innate trait and that many training techniques and philosophies that dominate/punish/correct dogs have made this worse (it is fashionable for the TV trainers to show such dogs responding to such techniques with them -- but the issue is, that can make things worse for how the dog interacts with others). I support pit bull bans not least because they are dogs that sadly tend to lead very truncated lives and often are not very happy dogs either but anxious and prone to violence if not with humans, then with other dogs, making them a constant liability. They come in regularly to the pounds because so many people leave them roaming about, are about 80-90% too aggressive with other dogs to even be allowed to exercise in the common pens with them, and 95% are never rehomed and just pts. No one even comes to the pound looking for them -- they are totally unwanted -- I don't even know of a single case where a bull breed was reclaimed by its owner from the Dublin pounds though I am sure it must occasionally happen, but it is very rare, even when they are in collars and harnesses. Likewise the pounds in the UK are teeming with staffies that no one wants, perhaps the number one unhomeable breed, as friendly as they can be to people (unfortunately they are too often very aggressive with other dogs). In the pounds, these breeds always have to be isolated from other dogs. At the very least, I think these are breeds that need to be tightly controlled with only registered, licensed breeders of good repute, with lines that are temperamentally sound, allowed to breed.
That said, unfortunately through vets and welfare officials, I am also aware of show breeders with bull breeds who actually use them in illegal dog fights -- utterly scandalous, very hard to get evidence to convict unfortunately -- and I doubt that is limited to just this country. So the dogs themselves are, because of the tasks they were originally bred for, often a liability to themselves and abused even by those who are their obvious guardians. I just think some breeds reach a point where they are out of place and out of time and are routinely misused and abused by humans. On all sides a breed ban may be the best option. I totally agree with the route San Francisco has taken, where ownership and breeding of pits is tightly controlled now.
