i do wonder if she would have been better off had someone with money came along and taken her

Well yeah, of course she would have been better off. But that also most likely wasn't going to happen. Rich assholes buy designer dogs for thousands of dollars from breeders, they don't sully their hands with poor dogs from poor people. Most of the time if you're poor and have a dog, that dog's only alternatives are an overcrowded and underfunded shelter or the literal streets. She certainly wouldn't have been any better off there.