Redwood City, CA Animal Ordinances: Cat Rules (2026)

6 declares it unlawful and a nuisance for any owner, keeper, or person in possession of a dog or cat to allow the animal to discharge excreta on public or private property other than the owner's own, unless that person immediately removes the waste, returns the property to a clean condition, and disposes of it safely and sanitarily by depositing it in a closed or sealed container in an appropriate sanitary receptacle. The duty is triggered the moment the animal relieves itself off the owner's own property, whether that is a sidewalk, a park, or a neighbor's yard, and it applies equally to cat owners as to dog owners.

The only carve-out written into the section is for visually disabled persons who use seeing-eye animals, who are exempt from the cleanup requirement for those specific animals. 2, which caps the number of dogs and cats a household may keep. Redwood City has not enacted a separate feral-cat-colony ordinance or cat-specific licensing scheme in the City Code; those matters, to the extent they are regulated locally, fall under the adopted County ordinance rather than a standalone City Code section, so this excreta-and-nuisance duty is the specific, quotable cat rule the City Code itself sets out.