The shelter costs are high enough to make sure people don’t buy them and sell them to labs. The shelters keep the costs high so there is no incentive for psychopaths to turn profit.
Additionally, there’s a certain demographic that likes to get tough looking dogs as status symbols, and then neglect/abuse them because they have no ability to actually care for anything good and living. The high shelter costs keep status dogs out of the hands of lowlife/low IQ thugs.
In the 80s/90s, I didn’t even have to fill out adoption papers.
I just showed up and signed my name to the ones they kept filled out for me, because they knew I was often some dog’s last chance.
The local shelter has started to import bogus “meat dogs” and sell them for $1000 because there are literally not enough dogs in the shelter to go around.
And the liberals buy them for “status”.
[Well, except for the one shipment of “meat dogs” that had rabies.]
Before the covid scam, the shelter would have annual “no adoption fee day” and also an ‘elderly discount day” where dogs were $50 and cats were $10.
I tried for the latter but all they had was Pits.
Things are not what you think they are, anymore.
Far too many “shelters” are little more than dog flipping profiteers.
Of the couple dozen dogs “available locally”, most are currently somewhere in the south and have to be transported here for another couple hundred bucks.
Rarely are there more than 5 or 6 dogs *actually* IN the shelter.
That is very interesting to know. We adopted and I was surprised by the cost.
That makes sense, in an effort to have the dogs go to good homes.