Wellington, FL Animal Ordinances: Dog Leash Laws (2026)

Wellington's Land Development Regulations do not contain a general municipal leash law; day-to-day animal control, including at-large dog complaints for regular households, runs through the Palm Beach County Sheriff's Office under contract and Palm Beach County Animal Care and Control, which enforces the county's own animal ordinance. The provision that does exist in Wellington's own code is confined to vacation rentals. Sec. 6.2.2.A.5.b.vii, part of the vacation rental supplementary standards adopted for the equestrian-heavy Village, applies only when a responsible party lets transient occupants bring pets onto a short-term rental property.

In that setting, the pet must be secured within the property lines or kept on a leash at all times, and tethering the animal outside is barred outright. The same clause separately bans continual nuisance barking. Because this standard sits inside the vacation rental article, a violation is treated like any other vacation rental standards breach: it is enforceable as a Class III civil infraction, each day of a continuing violation counts separately, and repeat pet-related violations feed into the same escalating suspension ladder that applies to other vacation rental noncompliance, up to permit suspension on a second violation and revocation on a fifth within six months. Homeowners renting long-term, or living on their own property, are not reached by this section at all.