lt_dlopen an uninstalled library

Hi List.
I'm making a program with plugins as shared libraries and when I run `make check` I want my program to load the uninstalled plugins using lt_dlopen().

I expected that passing `-dlopen libname.la` to libtool would force the generation of a wrapper script setting the proper LD_LIBRARY_PATH (just like regular linking with a shared .la does). However, an ELF binary is generated and and attempt to call lt_dlopen("libname.la") fails with "File not found". It only succeeds if the filename contains "./.libs/". What am I doing wrong?

Makefile.am:

    bin_PROGRAMS = purplecat
    purplecat_SOURCES = main.c
    
    purplecat_LDADD = \
    	-dlopen libpurplecat.la \
    	-lltdl \
    	$(MY_NULL)
    
    lib_LTLIBRARIES = libpurplecat.la
    
    libpurplecat_la_SOURCES = \
    	purplecat.h \
    	purplecat.c \
    	$(MY_NULL)
    
    libpurplecat_la_LDFLAGS = -module


main.c:

    int main(int argc, char *argv[]) {
    	static const char *filename = "libpurplecat";
    	static int (*p_pcat_main)(int argc, char *argv[]);
    	int res;
    	lt_dlinit();
    	lt_dlhandle handle = lt_dlopenext(filename);
    	if (!handle) {
    		fprintf(stderr, "Failed to load '%s': %s\n", filename, lt_dlerror());
    		return 1;
    	}
    	p_pcat_main = lt_dlsym(handle, "pcat_main");
    	res = p_pcat_main(argc, argv);
    	lt_dlclose(handle);
    	return res;
    }