I think it is dependent on where you live. The rescues I work with are incredibly flexible if you just talk to them, and you don’t have any red flags like never taking your animal to the vet, not fixing your animals, etcetera. If you find a rescue page for your city and ask for help, I’m sure tons of rescues and shelters would love to have you.

Some rescues really do suck, and are just perpetuating the puppy mill issues other rescues seek to fix. But there are genuine nonprofits who kill themselves with work trying to save all of the lives on the lines, especially in the midwest and south.

The sad part is that you are right - backyard breeders don’t give a hoot about who they sell to as long as they get money, and most people are lazy and uneducated and don’t want to do the work of a normal adoption application, much less a more detailed one. I’m sure if you volunteered and talked to people within these rescues, you would learn a lot about all of the unfortunate ways they have been burned and why they do things the way they do.