Angela Barrows hugs 4-month-old Tina after adopting her at a Wag It Forward pet adoption event in South Burlington on Sunday, September 13, 2026. Photo by Glenn Russell/VTDigger Theo Wells-Spackman is a Report for America corps member who reports for VTDigger. Until last year, J.A. and her hu sband had been able to support themselves, their kids and their two dogs in their Bennington County home without financial strain. She had a “really great job” in the ski industry, and he recently retired from work at a liquor store.  Then, their circumstances changed without warning. J.A., whose full name VTDigger is not including given the sensitivity of her story, began to suffer from two separate autoimmune conditions, which caused crushing fatigue and chronic joint pain. Her conditions left her bedridden some days, she said. She left work last August and was quickly approved for disability support. Six months later, her husband was diagnosed with two forms of cancer and began an intensive course of chemotherapy.  “We’re trying to, you know, make the money go everywhere,” J.A. said of the couple’s suddenly fixed income in an interview Thursday. “But it — it doesn’t.” In seeking a new home for her Great Dane and Labrador mix, J.A. joined what rescue volunteers and shelter staff across the state believe is a growing share of Vermonters who are giving up pets for financial reasons. But with shelters full to bursting and rescue operations rushed off their feet, appropriate new homes are often difficult to find. It’s a worry that extends well beyond Vermont. Across the country, rescue and shelter staff say former owners are citing the high cost of living as a primary driver in their decision to rehome pets. In shelter data compiled by the national nonprofit Best Friends Animal Society, housing and general economic strain accounted for roughly a quarter of surrenders in 2025, with owners giving up more pets overall so far this year.  The costs associated with pets’ medical treatment and nutrition have risen considerably in the last few years due to inflation and supply chain issues, according to Lisa Milot, Vermont’s first-ever director of animal welfare. Some veterinary practices have also closed or reduced since the Covid-19 pandemic, raising new access challenges for the state’s stretched animal health network and impacting pets’ health and safety, she added. “These aren’t the luxuries,” Milot said in an interview Thursday. “These are just what you need to be treating your animal baseline humanely.” The Lucy Mackenzie Humane Society in West Windsor has seen a significant increase lately in the number of people seeking to surrender their pets due to financial hardship or housing insecurity, said Jackie Stanley, the organization’s executive director. Stanley’s facility — like most other brick-and-mortar shelters in the state, Milot and others have heard — has a perennial waiting list for accepting new animals. As they adjusted to their new financial reality, J.A. and her husband realized they couldn’t afford vet bills when their dogs showed signs of illness. And the couple found themselves rationing dog food, which didn’t sit right. “It got really, really rough,” J.A. said. “That’s not a fair life.” But finding a viable alternative caregiver proved nearly impossible. J.A. reached out to more than 30 shelters and rescue operations across Vermont, New Hampshire and Maine, she said. She even tried appealing to the public through Facebook; several pages dedicated to pet rehoming in Vermont have thousands of members.  Before finally finding a shelter for the dogs, she had been turned away each time due to lack of capacity. More than half of the organizations she contacted responded by asking her to consider euthanasia for the dogs, who are aged 3 and 8. “I was like, no,” J.A. said. “That’s not an option.” Increasingly, the hundreds of owners who come to the state’s rescue network each year are citing a heavy financial burden of care or changes in housing, according to Courtney O’Brien, who is a town animal control officer in Enosburgh and secretary for Vermonters Against Animal Cruelty and Abandonment. “People love their pets,” O’Brien said, “but if it comes to feeding their kids over their pets, or taking their kids to their doctor’s offices over their pets going to the vet’s, like, they’re going to do that.” Commonly, clients are experiencing housing insecurity, O’Brien added, and can’t take their pet to the low-cost rental home or shelter they’re moving into. Renters are often bound by landlord-imposed restrictions on pets, Milot noted, a problem property owners do not face.  Rescue nonprofit For The Love of Dogs Vermont saw a “real uptick” in requests during recent periods of instability for Section 8 housing voucher recipients across the state, according to the nonprofit’s co-director Melissa Goldberg. Goldberg said she gets so many requests from owners to take dogs off their hands that she must regularly turn people away. This year has been the most intense since the organization’s founding in 2020, she said. “It is one of the most frustrating, heartbreaking issues to have these people begging for help, and there is nothing we can do,” she said. Stanley said one major part of the problem is a lack of centralized data to keep track of available homes and pets that need them. Milot said that such a database could certainly be a useful tool, but noted that such a system is not a standard service for state governments to provide. She encounters a related information deficit with stray dogs, she said, which are also becoming harder for state and town officials to track due to declining registration rates. Vermont’s 64,000 licensed dogs might account for just half of the state’s overall population, she added. Milot said rescue and shelter staff across the state tell her that in the past, the number of pets owners were giving up could be processed and rehomed relatively easily. “That has changed,” she said. Read the story on VTDigger here: As financial hardship drives owners to give up pets, Vermont can’t rehome them fast enough. ...read more read less