Lose your job. Lose your home. Lose your best four-legged friend.

Pets have become the latest casualties of the economy as their owners struggle with foreclosures, tight job markets and the soaring costs of life’s staples.

In a random sampling of more than a dozen North Jersey shelters and umbrella rescue groups, at least three quarters report more animals abandoned to their services. And the situation is stretching them to the breaking point.

“In the past week we had two dogs relinquished back to us after four years because the owners lost their home,” Christine Taylor, executive director of the Ramapo Bergen Animal Refuge Inc., in Oakland said recently. “We’ve been getting phone calls about people losing their homes and moving in with family where they can’t take their pets.”

The scope of the problem is difficult to quantify — many animals are abandoned to the streets or people are too embarrassed to give their reasons for surrendering their beloved companion.

But for those like Luz Pastrana of Paterson, it’s simply about raw priorities: Estranged from her husband, she and her six children were forced onto the street after losing their home. She felt she had no choice but to bring Minnie, their 12-year-old Great Pyrenees, to the Paterson Animal Shelter.

“I thought I’d have to go into a shelter myself and couldn’t take the dog,” she said, near tears. “But it was very hard; I wished there was a way to keep her — we had her since she was a puppy.”

It’s a story growing more common.