Oldham County, KY Animal Ordinances: Cat Rules (2026)

Oldham County Code Chapter 90, Animal Control and Licensing, enforced by the county's Animal Control Officer (ACO) under the Judge-Executive, sets out a specific framework for free-roaming cats rather than treating every cat as an owned pet requiring registration. Section 90.01 defines a COMMUNITY CAT as any cat or kitten with no apparent owner or identification that is free-roaming, and a CARETAKER as any person or organization who participates in trap-neuter-return (TNR) or who regularly provides food and care to a community cat. TNR itself is defined as the practice of humanely trapping a community cat, having it altered and vaccinated by a licensed veterinarian, marking it with an ear tip (removal of the quarter-inch tip of one ear under anesthesia) as the universal sign of sterilization and rabies vaccination, and returning the cat to the location where it was trapped for long-term care.

Because Section 90.02's restraint requirement expressly excludes community cats, a caretaker who feeds and manages a colony is not violating the at-large prohibition that governs owned dogs and other animals. Cats that are owned, by contrast, are not required to buy an annual license the way dogs must under Section 90.03, but Section 90.03(B)(3) still requires a current rabies tag for every cat: the owner must retain the tag or certificate and produce it on demand to verify vaccination. An owned cat impounded by Animal Control also cannot be released without proof of rabies vaccination under Section 90.05(D).