The Los Angeles City Council voted Tuesday to temporarily stop issuing new dog breeding licenses due to overcrowding at city-run animal shelters.
The city's six shelters have 737 kennels, but there were more than 1,500 dogs living in shelters in February, according to the most recent data available. Shelters exceeded more than 200% capacity, resulting in the number of dogs tripling in kennels or in crates in hallways for months on end.
Dog euthanasia rates in the city are up 22% so far this year compared to the same period last year.
The Times has chronicled poor conditions at shelters, including a lack of dog-walking facilities and inadequate food supplies for small animals.
“It is unacceptable for the city to continue issuing breeding permits while thousands of animals suffer from overcrowded conditions in our shelters,” Council Member Eunice Hernandez, who chairs the committee that oversees the city’s Department of Animal Services, said Tuesday.
The American Kennel Club, which bills itself as the world's largest non-profit all-breed registry, opposes the ban. “Blaming registered and responsible breeders” for the shelter crisis will not improve conditions for these dogs, she said in a statement this week.
Anecdotal evidence suggests that the majority of people who buy licenses from the city do not pet their dogs, Stacey Daines, general manager of the Department of Animal Services, said at a hearing last year.
Instead, many dog owners purchase a city dog breeder permit, which costs $235, so they don't have to spay or neuter their pets as required by city law.
The city does not regulate breeders, and unlicensed backyard breeders remain a problem.
Deans said at the hearing last year that she is seeing more and more purebred dogs coming into shelters.
The ban only applies to new dog breeding permits. It will be raised when the average daily stock of dogs in city-run animal shelters over a three-month period “becomes equal to or less than 75 percent of the department’s total kennel capacity.”
People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals Senior Vice President Lisa Lange applauded council members for Tuesday's vote, but said in a statement that more needs to be done, including enforcing the current spay and neuter law.
Hernandez said the ban is “not the only action” the city needs. She said she hopes to discuss “current conditions in shelters during our budget conversations” in the coming months.
