Petaluma, CA Animal Ordinances: Breed Restrictions (2026)

Petaluma does not single out any dog breed for restriction. 24, adopted under state Food and Agricultural Code §31683 and the city's general police power, builds its dangerous-animal scheme entirely around documented conduct. 020 defines a "potentially dangerous animal" as one that, on a first occasion, attacks without provocation and requires defensive action, attacks another animal or livestock off its owner's property, threatens bodily harm, or causes a non-severe injury. A "dangerous animal" is one that causes severe injury or death in a single attack, or repeats any of the potentially-dangerous behaviors a second time.

The definitions contain no breed reference and instead exempt only law-enforcement dogs performing their duties, and exclude animals whose target had provoked, trespassed, committed a crime, or attacked first. 040; that hearing must be held ten to thirty days after notice. 050 authorizes conditions including a fifty-dollar annual registration fee (twenty-five dollars for each additional animal), a locked, secure enclosure, muzzling and a leash no longer than six feet in public, mandatory spay or neuter, at least one hundred thousand dollars in liability insurance or a fifty-thousand-dollar bond, a posted "Beware of Dog" sign in letters at least three inches high, and mandatory microchipping.

040(F) lets the hearing officer order humane euthanasia under California Food and Agricultural Code §31645 where release would pose a significant threat, with a rebuttable presumption of that threat after a fatal attack or repeated dangerous incidents.