Irving, TX Animal Ordinances: Cat Rules (2026)

Sec. 6-80 makes every animal owner responsible for their animal's conduct "at all times," and lists animals at large as the first named public nuisance. Under Sec. 6-80(a)(1)-(2), an owner commits an offense both by letting a cat get loose and by failing to keep an enclosure or restraint system secure enough to prevent that escape in the first place; there is no separate "cat license" in Irving's code, and cats are governed by the same at-large, waste, and noise nuisance provisions that apply to dogs. Owners also have an ongoing duty under Sec. 6-80(c) to pick up their cat's feces from any public place or another person's private property and to carry a bag or container to do it.

Community cat colonies get their own carve-out. Sec. 6-80(g)(1) makes it an affirmative defense to the at-large offense if the cat is feral or a community cat that has been sterilized, vaccinated against rabies, and ear-notched, the standard markers of a managed trap-neuter-return colony. That defense applies only to the at-large charge in subsection (a); it does not excuse a colony caretaker from the feces, feeding, or noise-disturbance nuisance provisions elsewhere in Sec. 6-80. Cats are also swept into Irving's general microchip mandate at Sec. 6-15, which requires every cat over four months old to carry a registered microchip and wear an ID tag with the owner's name and phone number whenever it is outdoors, and into the eight-companion-animal household cap set by Sec. 6-92.