Local shelters generally are not like this. It’s these national organizations that really don’t do rescue but just put sad commercials out for fundraising, appearing to be a group that saves animals all over the nation.
Local shelter people want animals adopted. They would love to place all animals instead of being over capacity and having to put some down.
No-kill shelters pick and choose and will refuse taking in animals when they are full - so these then go on to county animal shelters that don’t refuse surrenders, and have to have the burden of doing the no-kill’s work for them. They get to have ‘clean hands’ because other shelters are mandated to take in animals even when full.
Shelters have refined requirements over the years because they have learned certain general warning signs that can lead to the animal being returned to them - which defeats the purpose and wasted time - or abandoned again. Many shelters also develop profiles of the animals via socialization to see if certain animals would be good with kids, or prefer quiet, are high energy, may have special needs, etc. They spend a lot of time trying to make better matches with prospective adopters to improve the odds the animal won’t be surrendered and both animal and people are good fits for the other. Not every place can do this but more and more are. They just have so many animals coming in they really want to cut down on re-surrenders.
I’ve never met people in the local shelters, and I’ve known them all from adoption counselors, to shelter managers, to executive directors and facilities managers, that they all are really pro-pet owner - if they weren’t, there’d be no animals ever leaving the building. They all want their adoption numbers to go up and their euthanasia numbers to go down. Most of them I know have at least one animal they’ve adopted from their shelter.
Don’t confuse the large national groups with your local shelter people. Many of them don’t even realize the anti-pet mentality of HSUS or PETA.
My local SPCA is excellent in that regard. But I know a lot of these animal advocacy groups are often run by shrills, who should not be anywhere near an animal.
If I was to get a dog, I’d probably go to the SPCA or city pound to pick one up.