Owners of Unaltered Dogs Face Fee Hikes

The city Animal Regulation Commission voted Monday to more than triple the cost of licenses for dogs that are not neutered or spayed in Los Angeles to $100, citing a public health crisis caused by 44,000 stray canines roaming city streets.

Despite opposition from owners of breeder and show dogs, the commission voted to double the fee for a breeder license from $50 to $100.

The Los Angeles City Council will decide on the new fees, which combined would generate $2 million in additional revenue.

“It’s fairly dramatic for the city to do this at this point, but it’s necessary because of the public health crisis,” said Dan Knapp, general manager of the city Animal Regulation Department.

Knapp said 80% of the city’s 760,000 dogs are unlicensed and therefore may not have been inoculated against rabies.

The city now puts more than 30,650 dogs to death each year in its shelters because of overpopulation and the lack of adoptions, said Gretchen Wyler, who heads an Encino animal protection group called The Ark Trust Inc.

“I believe this [ordinance] will become the standard across the nation,” said Wyler, whose group is part of the Coalition to End Pet Overpopulation, which proposed the new fees.

Today, 42% of the licensed dogs are not spayed or neutered. Knapp estimated that in 2000, the first year the ordinance would be in effect, the rate would drop to 40%.

The new fees would make Los Angeles’ fees for unaltered dogs the highest in the area, officials said. In comparison, the license fee for unaltered dogs in San Diego and Sacramento is $25, while the fee is $16 in San Francisco, $22 in Glendale and $30 in Thousand Oaks.

Steven Afriat, president of the Animal Regulation Commission, said the fee increase should provide a major incentive for dog owners to get their animals spayed or neutered because the license fee for an altered dog remains at $10. The panel recommended that the City Council approve a six-month amnesty period.

“We think this will shift a higher percentage of dog owners who are not altering their dogs to altering their animals,” Afriat said.

The higher breeder license fees also may discourage unlicensed backyard breeders, Afriat said.

The panel proposed that 50% of the new breeder fee go to education programs on licensing and responsible pet ownership, and that additional dog license revenue go to spay-and-neuter programs.

Critics of the Los Angeles proposal say it may just drive more dog owners underground.

“It won’t accomplish a darn thing except penalize responsible people,” said Judythe Coffman of the California Federation of Dog Clubs.

Coffman said that only 20% of the dogs in city shelters are purebreds, so the problem is not being caused by breeders.

“There is a very low compliance rate as it is. Historically, raising the fee lowers the [compliance] rate,” said Carolyn Osier, who testified against the proposals.

Osier represents a Burmese cat breeders group, which is concerned that the higher fees proposed for dogs could be extended to cats.

“All of the studies indicate that the animals least likely to end up in the shelters are those bred by responsible breeders,” Osier said.

She claimed that the city is creating a “pet Gestapo”.

Only three dog breeders have registered in Los Angeles, while thousands of people are believed to be breeding dogs for sale, said Commissioner Gini Barrett of the American Humane Assn.

Nor has the county had much success with its $125 breeder fee, said Kaye Michelson, a county spokeswoman.

“It’s one of those things that’s difficult to enforce. We don’t get the number of people getting licenses that we should,” Michelson said.

Critics said the city program will fail because the department does not have enough animal regulation workers to enforce the rules.