LOS ANGELES — Local dog shelters are reaching out to the public for help to ease some of the ongoing over crowding they’re experiencing.

At all six Los Angeles Animal Services shelter locations, dogs are overflowing into hallways. Some are kept for months in kennels that are only meant for temporary holds, and most are doubled up in single occupancy suites.

This overcrowding is what keeps general manager Staycee Dains up at night.

“We have more animals in our care than we have resources to care for them,” she said.

The reasons for this overcrowding in the first place, Dains noted, comes down to mostly economic reasons.

“We definitely get people bringing animals that they say are strays when they’re definitely their pet,” Dains says. “The top three reasons why people have to surrender their pet, the No. 1 reason is housing. They’re not allowed to have the pet they have in the housing situation they are in. No. 2, medical care. I’m not talking exorbitant emergency care, I’m talking routine vaccines, flea treatments, even food.”

While Dains hopes for 3,000 adoptions by the end of January, she wants the public to know that Home for the Howlidays also means fostering a dog for one week.

“The animals in our care deserve a break from the shelter,” she said. “And studies show that when they come back to the shelter, they’ll never be as stressed out as they were before.”