There's a puppy problem at the Mae Bachur Animal Shelter.

As of Thursday afternoon, the shelter was home to 22 puppies, three of them no more than a few weeks old.

"People are not spaying and neutering their animals,” said shelter administrator Tracy Smythe, standing outside a kennel over-full with a litter of black terrier-crosses.

The four wiry-haired puppies were all on their hind legs, begging for a pat from Smythe's outstretched hand, ears perked up and tails wagging.

Mid-winter always brings a spike in unwanted puppies, Smythe said, but this year the pens are particularly full.

Eight of the puppies came to the shelter in utero, Smythe explained.

Their very pregnant mother was found by a volunteer dog walker and the pups were born soon after.

Another three were brought in just two weeks after they were born by a dog owner who said he "couldn't handle” the new additions.

"What gets me is they always seem so surprised,” Smythe said of the people who deliver puppies to the shelter after their unspayed dogs have given birth.

"It's very, very, very important to have the female fixed,” Smythe stressed. The shelter can help pay for the $200 procedure if a dog owner can't afford it, she pointed out.

The shelter spays and neuters all the animals it adopts out.

When adopting out puppies that aren't old enough for the operation, the shelter takes a $50 deposit which is refunded when the owner brings his or her puppy in to be fixed for free.

Although puppies are usually adopted out fairly quickly, the shelter is overwhelmed at the moment, with the young dogs living four or five to a pen.