A Los Angeles City Council committee on Wednesday supported a moratorium on dog breeding permits, citing overcrowding at city-run animal shelters.

Members of the Neighborhood and Community Enrichment Committee voted 3-0 to support the temporary moratorium.

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which now goes to the full City Council for consideration.

Staycee Dains, executive director of the Animal Services Department, told council members that dogs are being stored in crates in the hallways of shelters due to space constraints.

The moratorium is intended to demonstrate that ranching is not an activity supported by the city of LA,” Dains said.

Organizations that are very pro-breeding are not organizations that do anything to help animals in animal shelters,” she added. “They simply create animals that we can kill later. And that is not appropriate.

The American Kennel Club, which bills itself as the world’s largest all-breed nonprofit organization, opposes the moratorium. The group said in a statement that suspending the rights of responsible, law-abiding breeders will not help protect overpopulation.

Breeder licenses can be purchased from the city for $235, Dains said. However, the city does not regulate breeders and there are no rules about how often a dog can be bred.

Dains said she has seen more purebred dogs in shelters over the past two decades.

I don’t know if these animals are wallpapered, but if you go to shelters, every husky and German shepherd there is, almost all of them are purebred. Same with pit bulls.

Still, there are questions about how the proposed moratorium would work out.

Dains told the committee that anecdotal evidence suggests the majority of people purchasing licenses from the city do not breed. Instead, many dog ​​owners purchase a breeder’s license so they don’t have to spay or neuter their pets.

Owners of intact dogs must also obtain a separate permit from the city.

Under the proposed moratorium, the city would issue when to resume breeding permits

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less than 75% of capacity.

The city issued 2,152 breeding permits in 2022, a 15% increase from the previous year, according to the city’s Animal Services Department.

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Bad idea, I just don’t know how this will impact our current crisis, Michelle Cornelius, a volunteer at West Valley Animal Shelter, said of the proposal.

If the breeding problem comes from out of town, like a breeder in Glendale, or from unlicensed backyard breeders, I’m not sure how much impact it will have,” added Cornelius, who spoke to The Times in her individual capacity, not on behalf of the department.

Councilmember Eunisses Hernandez, chair of the Neighborhood and Community Enrichment Committee, suggested during Wednesday’s meeting that an exemption for show dogs could be added to the moratorium.

Dains, who was appointed chief executive earlier this year, also told committee members that the department continues to face staff shortages.

Dains said she wants to add $3 million to the department for staffing. She also wants to hire shelter volunteers for part-time jobs.

The Times has documented poor conditions in shelters, including a lack of dog parks and inadequate food supplies for small animals.

Two recent reports, one from former City Councilman Paul Koretz, and the other from City Controller Kenneth Mejia, detail staffing issues and friction between the staff and volunteers the department relies on to care for the animals.

According to City Council Member Marqueece Harris-Dawson, the Chesterfield Square Animal Shelter in South LA in particular is struggling with a lack of staff. The counselor’s office helped clean up the shelter on Sunday.