Doña Ana County, NM Animal Ordinances: Cat Rules (2026)

§ 134-7, the county's abandonment section, carves out a specific status for community cat colonies. Subsection C states that a person or organization managing unowned cats through trap, neuter and return (TNR) is not deemed the owner, harborer, keeper, holder, possessor, custodian or caretaker of those cats, so returning a sterilized feral cat to its colony is not 'abandonment' under this chapter. That protection comes with geographic limits in Subsection D: a TNR cat cannot be returned to the area it was trapped in if that spot sits within 2,000 feet of a licensed day-care center, a public or private school, a nursing home or care facility, a park, or any county-owned or leased property.

TNR cats also cannot be released within two miles of the Rio Grande or within 2,000 feet of the edge of a designated natural or unchannelized arroyo. The rule adds a behavioral trigger: if a returned colony cat is reported as a problem, creates a public nuisance, or is trapped or picked up three times within a twenty-four-month period, the Animal Services Center of the Mesilla Valley (ASCMV) must place it in an adoption program or euthanize it rather than return it again. A property owner can also block a specific TNR cat from being released back onto their land simply by reporting it as a nuisance to the county.

Outside of TNR colonies, cats fall under the same at-large, restraint and rabies-vaccination duties in §§ 134-5 and 134-6 as dogs; the chapter does not require a separate cat license.