Yes, and people don’t understand backwoods way of life. When we lived in the mountains, a neighbor had a dog that he let run loose. It was a large aggressive dog and it started extending its “territory” into our land. It began to stalk my husband. One day it cornered him under our carport and growled menacingly. It did not attack, my husband went inside, but called the neighbor and told him the dog was becoming threatening toward him. The neighbor apologized and shot the dog. We were shocked, we just wanted him to chain the dog up or something.
But here’s the thing, we had bears and coyotes around, and people would keep large aggressive dogs loose on their land for that reason, to discourage wildlife and vermin, but the dogs had to be people friendly. And these were poor people. The idea of spending money to take a dog to the vet to be put down would be crazy to them. And like you said, they knew it was more humane anyway. To these people a dog isn’t a family member, it’s a tool for survival. Hunting dogs, guard dogs, working dogs. If the dog wasn’t a good fit for the job, you put it down. That’s the culture, that’s how they were raised, how their daddy did it and their granddaddy did it.
^^^^^This! It's the dipshit, mamby, pamby Urbanites and Suburbanites that buy their meat in a shrink wrapped package and think the cow, pig, or chicken were never killed to feed them.
They don't understand the reality of farming, ranching, nor rural living. It's about survival and frugalness.