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

Colusa County Code Chapter 3 (Animals and Fowl) regulates dogs, livestock, and fowl, but imposes no license requirement, rabies-vaccination mandate, or leash rule on cats; Section 3-13 (licensing) and Section 3-35 (rabies vaccination) apply to dogs over four months of age. The general at-large and nuisance provision in Section 3-1 reaches "any other fowl or animal" and prohibits an owner from allowing an animal to habitually make loud noises that cause general annoyance to a neighboring inhabitant, and from allowing animals to run on the land of another without the landowner's written permission, so a cat creating a noise nuisance or trespassing could be reached through that section. The Zoning Code, Chapter 44, counts cats as small domestic household pets under the household-pet limits of Section 44-4.110.010 (four pets, more on larger lots, with no more than six of one species on parcels over an acre). At the state level, California Food and Agricultural Code Section 31752 requires public animal shelters to hold a stray cat for a minimum period and to check for owner identification before the cat is adopted, transferred, or euthanized. Because there is no county cat-confinement law, cat owners in the unincorporated area are governed mainly by the general nuisance rules and the household-pet count.