Springfield, OH Animal Ordinances: Dog Leash Laws (2026)

Springfield Codified Ordinances § 505.01(b) requires every dog owner, keeper or harborer, tagged or not, to keep the animal confined on the owner's premises or under a person's reasonable control at all times; letting a dog wander onto any public place or a neighbor's property violates the section outright. A separate clause targets female dogs in heat: they cannot leave their own premises unless properly leashed, even briefly. Subsection (c) makes the animal's mere presence running loose in a street or on someone else's land prima facie evidence of a violation, so an officer does not have to witness the dog leaving a specific yard.

Section 505.02 lets the Springfield and Clark County Humane Society's Animal Shelter impound any dog caught at large on sight; the owner must pay the shelter's impoundment and maintenance costs before reclaiming the animal, and if nobody redeems the dog within three days of mailed, personal, or published notice, the shelter's agent may dispose of it. Section 505.03 separately requires every dog over three months old to carry a current Clark County Auditor registration tag, and an unregistered dog is presumed subject to impounding. The leash and confinement rule sits inside Chapter 505, Animals and Fowl, enforced citywide alongside the City's cruelty, nuisance, and barking-animal sections, and applies regardless of breed or size.