Fayette County, GA Animal Ordinances: Cat Rules (2026)

Article V distinguishes several categories of cat. A "feral cat" was born wild or unsocialized and typically avoids people; a "free-roaming cat" isn't owned and isn't cared for by one person; an "owned cat" is a companion regularly fed and sheltered by the same person and showing signs of ownership like a collar, tag or microchip; a "community cat" is a feral or free-roaming cat that has already been sterilized, rabies-vaccinated and ear-tipped, meaning a veterinarian removed a quarter inch off the tip of its left ear in a straight cut while it was anesthetized.

Under § 6-102, any organization or person wanting to run a countywide or targeted TNVR program must submit a proposal consistent with the county's current TNVR policy to the director of animal control, who can approve or deny it. An approved permit runs for two years, must be renewed at the end of that span, and can be revoked at any time, with the holder notified by mail. While actively conducting TNVR activities consistent with the program's purpose, a permitted trapper or organization is exempt from the county code's restraint-of-animals and abandonment provisions, meaning trapping, holding and releasing a community cat back to its capture site isn't treated as an unrestrained-animal or abandonment violation. The article sets no separate license requirement or at-large ban specific to cats beyond this permitted program.