Was there a time when you were unaware of the over population problem of pets in the USA?

When I was younger we only adopted pets and they came and went as my mother did'nt want to train but wanted a perfect family dog that would work.I don't think we had an overpopulation at the that time as we would see a few dogs in each shelter as many went off to be put down.They doid'nt have rescue groups and no kill shelters then so it remained far and few between that you would visit a shelter on a long drive on the weekend..Today with so many people and as with their spending habits and credit card use is easy to say Charge that puppy with no thought on the character or the means to take care of it.When they tire of the cuteness it ends up in a shelter without a thought.People today have more than 1 dog as 3 seems to be the minimum today.So today with job losses and forclosure these many pets end up in shelters.I think today people are made more aware of the conditions of puppy mills and shelter dogs than when I was a kid.We never heard those words.So I wish people today would sstart teaching their children the Value of pet ownership and it should be taught in schools the horrors that go on at Puppy Mills and then and only then can we shut these places down..