Siskiyou County, CA Animal Ordinances: Cat Rules (2026)

Cats are lightly regulated in unincorporated Siskiyou County. The county's licensing and at-large program in County Code Title 5, Chapter 3 is built around dogs (the dog-license requirement, the dogs-at-large rule in Article 14, and the potentially dangerous/vicious dog process in Article 12). The county does not publish a cat-licensing requirement, a cat-specific leash or at-large ordinance, or a numeric limit on the number of cats a household may keep. That does not leave cats entirely unregulated: rabies-control measures in the county's public-health code can reach cats; the general duty to provide animals with proper care and to avoid creating a public nuisance applies to all animals, including cats; and the parcel's zoning under Title 10, Chapter 6 still frames how animals are kept. California state law also reaches cats - for example, shelters must spay or neuter cats before adoption under state Food & Agricultural Code provisions, and severe neglect is prosecutable under Penal Code 597 et seq. In short, while owners are not required to license cats or keep them leashed in the unincorporated county, they must still care for them properly and avoid letting them become a sanitation or nuisance problem. Owners should keep cats vaccinated and confirm any rabies-control requirements with the county.