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The Los Angeles City Council voted Tuesday to temporarily stop issuing new dog breeding permits due to overcrowding at city-run animal shelters.

The city’s six shelters have 737 kennels, but more than 1,500 dogs lived in the shelters as of February, according to the most recent data available. Shelters are more than 200% over capacity, which has resulted in dogs being tripled in kennels or housed in crates in hallways for months.

The number of dog euthanasias across the city is up 22% so far this year compared to the same period last year.

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

It is unacceptable that the city continues to issue breeding permits while thousands of animals suffer from overcrowded conditions in our shelters, Council Member Eunisses Hernandez, chairman of the committee that oversees the city’s Animal Services Department, said Tuesday.

Animal welfare activists are pressuring the city council to make changes during the shelter crisis

The American Kennel Club, which bills itself as the world’s largest all-breed nonprofit organization, opposes the ban. This week, a statement said that “blaming registered, responsible breeders” for the shelter crisis will not improve conditions for these dogs.

Anecdotal evidence shows that the majority of people who buy permits from the city do not breed their dogs, Staycee Dains, executive director of the Animal Control Department, said at a hearing last year.

Instead, many dog ​​owners purchase a city breeder’s 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.

Dains said during last year’s hearing that she is seeing more and more purebred dogs entering shelters.

The ban only applies to new dog breeding permits. This will be lifted when the quarterly average daily inventory count of dogs in the city-operated animal shelters is “equal to or less than 75 percent of the total capacity of the dog kennel departments.”

People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals Senior Vice President Lisa Lange praised council members for Tuesday’s vote, but said in a statement that more needs to be done, including enforcing the existing spay and neuter law.

The fate of Dodger Dog highlights the council member of LA’s animal shelter crisis

Hernandez said the ban is “far from the only action” the city needs. She said she hopes to “discuss current shelter conditions during our budget discussions” in the coming months.