This summer, animal shelters ran out of room. Philadelphia’s ACCT Philly took in more than 600 animals in a single week in late July, the highest weekly intake the organization says it has seen in more than a decade — leaving just two empty dog crates in the entire building and forcing staff to euthanize two dogs simply to make space for the ones still arriving.
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“Last week, we just went over a bridge or a ledge,” Executive Director Sarah Barnett told 6abc. The shelter is now paying people to take animals in: $200 to foster a dog, $150 to foster a cat or kittens, and $750 to rescue partners for every large dog they accept, with adoption fees waived every weekend through August. The Pennsylvania SPCA declared its own “space crisis” after roughly 40 animals arrived in a single day, filling its Philadelphia kennels and forcing emergency $25 adoptions. In 2025, Shelter Animals Count, the ASPCA’s national tracking program, reported the same pressure everywhere: longer stays, fuller shelters, no real relief in sight.[4]
I keep thinking about the gap underneath these statistics. Because most of us don’t think of ourselves as the kind of people who’d let an animal end up there.
The cost of pet care is certainly a reasonable consideration and can mean the difference between welcoming a new family member or not taking the leap out of financial fear. But it doesn’t have to be the case.
A helping hand
It brings to mind the tired cliché, “having a pet is a big responsibility,” and surely the cost of care is one of the many considerations. However, that cost doesn’t necessarily need to be as high as one might estimate through things like preventive care, wellness plans, and insurance.
Fifty-one percent of pet owners, according to a 2023 Pew Research study, say their pet is as much a part of the family as any human member. We say we love these animals like children.
However, a study from PetSmart Charities and Gallup found that 52 percent of pet owners skipped or declined necessary veterinary care between April 2024 and April 2025. Seventy-one percent said it came down to money.
That’s not cruelty: That’s sadly the reality of seeing another living being as your child, but with today’s economics rattling around your head. The majority of Americans are living on less and trying to make ends meet. But yet, if they’re truly your child, like a human child, your actions would be undeniable.
I know that gap personally, because I almost fell into it. I adopted a dog named Shirley, a beautiful Weimaraner mix, the kind of dog that leans her whole body weight against your leg for attention and licks your entire face like it’s an ice cream cone.
Not long after I brought her home, she got sick. Really sick. It turned out to be Ehrlichia, a tick-borne infection that’s prevalent in the region (Pennsylvania recorded an all-time high of ehrlichiosis cases in 2023), and had quietly done damage before we knew it was there. The animal hospital gave me a number: roughly $25,000 to keep her alive. I stood at the desk, mouth open, and started oddly laughing. “Who on earth has a credit card with that kind of limit? No one in my circle.” Other pet parents in the waiting room, dealing with their own crises, actually applauded. None of us were the 1 percent; we’re average Americans, amongst which two-thirds live paycheck to paycheck.
My alternative was to have her put down. She was only four. What if this were a human child, faced with the same decision? It’s horrifying to even consider that hypothetical reality.
Then I remembered that I had pet insurance coverage; this was long before I worked in the industry. It’s the only reason “yes” came out of my mouth. They treated her, and I got six more months with Shirley, before the disease reared back. I came home from work to find her collapsed on the floor. We had about 10 minutes together. It felt like she was saying, you didn’t give up on me, so I stuck it out for you. She passed peacefully in my arms. I had a 3D artist turn a photo of her into an incredibly realistic looking urn shaped like her head. I walk past it daily and say, “hey Shirl, miss you, love.”
She might still be alive today if only her former family administered monthly tick prevention medication. The cost of which averages just $25 to $50 a month, much cheaper than $25,000, far more humane than the awful pain she suffered and inevitably the emotional toll that I carry with me still.
Costs are real. But some of the math cuts against what people assume. A parvo vaccine — to protect against a highly contagious and often deadly viral disease that wreaks havoc on a puppy’s gastrointestinal system — runs about $30 to $50. Treating a dog that already has parvo can run from several hundred dollars up to $5,000 or more, depending on severity.
Pet insurance, the industry I most recently worked in, can cost from $36 to $70 a month for accident and illness coverage, in addition to wellness — though that range swings quite a bit depending on your pet’s breed, age, and where you live, with premiums for large or older dogs running higher. But there’s a nuance here: Accident and illness coverage is something you never want to have to use.
Wellness insurance plans that provide the preventive care that can help a pet live a healthier longer life, cost generally just $10 to $30 a month and are offered by many insurance carriers. This spreads out the cost of care, so there’s no “sticker shock” at checkout by amortizing the annual necessary care procedures over the year.
There’s a selfish reason to care about this too. A 2019 meta-analysis in the American Heart Association’s journal Circulation found dog owners had a 24 percent lower risk of dying from any cause than non-owners, stronger still for people who’d already survived a heart attack or stroke. We keep them alive longer. Turns out they’re doing the same for us.
None of this started with insurance forms or vet bills. It started with wolves walking toward a fire, their first peaceful interactions with humans whom they had no reason to trust. Shirley did something similar, joining a family that already had two dogs, confused about why her first owners were letting her go. My older dog Millie became her best friend and helped her settle into a new, albeit short, life with us.
The shelters filling up this summer are proof of the gap between how we feel about our pets and what we’re able to give them. I’ll say this plainly: We need to give them more. If you’re even considering adopting, don’t neglect that feeling. Try fostering to see if it would be a fit. Encourage friends to adopt, especially if they have kids. And even if you can’t care for an animal yourself, you can help animals in need of homes and care.
Granted, wellness plans, clinic visits, vaccines, and pet insurance, none of it is glamorous, but none of it feels urgent until the day it very suddenly is, and it can mean the difference between a reasonably cost solution versus the potential loss of a beloved family member. We need to do for them whatever we would do for our own human children. That includes getting them out of cages — we have to clear the shelters.
Trends are showing that statement isn’t far off: according to a Harris Poll released last month, 55 percent of Gen Z and Millennials say they’ve considered building a life around pets instead of having kids.
Steve Schonberg is an award-winning media contributor, animal advocate, volunteer and experienced pet insurance professional.
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