Merced, CA Animal Ordinances: Dog Leash Laws (2026)

070 of the Merced Municipal Code bars any owner from permitting or suffering a dog to stray from private property unless it is restrained by a leash or lead not exceeding eight feet. The code carves out five narrow exceptions: police or search-and-rescue dogs on duty, dogs enrolled in an organized training or obedience program on property with the operator's permission, dogs actively herding livestock under an owner's direction, dogs accompanying a licensed hunter in a restricted shooting district, and dogs inside the fenced perimeter of the city's designated dog park at R Street and Yosemite Avenue.

Outside those situations, animal control can cite an owner whose dog is found off-leash and off-property. 12, which carries a fine up to $1,000, up to a year in the Merced County jail, or both (Sec. A). The code also treats an animal at large that has not caused injury as a separate, lesser violation: Sec. A independently prohibits any owner from permitting an animal to 'be at large' at all, and Sec. E defines 'at large' for a dog as off the owner's premises and not under physical restraint.

The dog park itself carries its own leash rule: Sec. 071 requires dogs to be leashed when entering or exiting the park and prohibits unleashed or unsupervised dogs inside it. Animal control (a division of the Merced Police Department) enforces leash violations and can impound a dog found running loose under the impoundment authority in Sec. 190.