This is not it, chief. Eastern Europe has lots of problems with street animals, and it’s not because people get pets. Most of the time, the animals in these shelters are just “wild” street dogs, which end up forming packs and may attack people.
There’s campaigns to neuter dogs and cats to limit the population, but you’ll find out that, very frequently, funds will be siphoned off to the pockets of local politicians. Also, some people won’t neuter their animals because they believe they won’t be useful anymore for defending their yards or catch mice.
And what’s the outcome? Dogs and cats end up on the streets, reproduce, and end up increasing the population further, thus propagating the problems.
Western European countries don’t struggle as much with this, and even import pets from other countries. The conditions are also much better for animals in these countries. The problem in countries like Romania is corruption and a lack of empathy towards animals, not people owning pets.
Dogs were not originally seen as pets in these countries, but rather as work animals. If you were to visit rural areas in an Eastern European country 5-10 years ago, you’d find that people that owned a dog had them chained up next to their fences, used them for protecting their livestock, or used them for hunting. If one were to escape, the village would have an extra litter of puppies that would most likely be dumped in the middle of a field or another village.
I’m not arguing for horror stories like puppy mills, which I am completely against and agree with you in those kinds of cases. But countries like Romania, Bulgaria, Greece, etc. are a bit different. Most of these dogs come from rural areas, which managed to live off of garbage until now.
The alternative to the shelter is euthanasia, but I am honestly glad if a responsible person decides to adopt the animal instead. What you should really be against is people paying to adopt a specific breed from a breeder, not those that free up space in actual shelters.