ATLANTA – "Desperate Pets!" read the headline of an online classified ad posted from Lee County, Fla., which is ranked first in the nation in home foreclosures.

"Please Help!" begged a post from a pet owner in Carroll County, Ga., who said she had two dogs that would be homeless when her mother's home was foreclosed on in a few weeks. "Our shelter has something like an 80 percent kill rate," the post said. "I have exhausted every effort I know to find them a good home. No one wants a pregnant dog."

As mounting layoffs and foreclosures have caused many middle-class Americans to lose their economic footing, some are parting with their pets, a trend that has sent a tide of displaced dogs and cats to rescue groups and county animal shelters around the country, officials said.

"One lady was crying to me today and said: 'I've either got to feed my kid or feed my dog. What would you do?"' said Shari Johannes, owner of Dog Pack Rescue, a "no kill" shelter in Kingston, Ga., that keeps animals until they are adopted.

Like most no-kill rescue groups in areas where foreclosures are high, Johannes, who is keeping 180 dogs on five acres, is over capacity. She will not accept any more animals, though people beg her daily to take their pets.

When no-kill rescue groups turn pets away, the last option for owners is usually a county animal shelter, which will typically euthanize animals when space runs out.

In Georgia, which ranked sixth in the nation in foreclosures in May, directors of county animal shelters reported that the number of pets surrendered by their owners spiked in the first part of the year.

Other areas of the country hit hard by foreclosures are seeing similar increases, said Wayne Pacelle, president and chief executive of the Humane Society of the United States.

"In terms of relinquishment, I'd say this is the most serious circumstance that I can recall," Pacelle said. And as more pets are being turned in, he noted, cash donations to animal rescue groups have declined and fewer people are adopting pets.

"It's a bit of a triple whammy," he said.