West Covina, CA Animal Ordinances: Mandatory Spay/Neuter (2026)

West Covina Municipal Code Chapter 6, the Animal Control Ordinance, incorporates Los Angeles County Code Title 10 by reference under Sec. 6-3, subject to a list of amendments the city council carved out in Sec. 6-5. Subsection (b) of that amendment section is unambiguous: Part 4 of Title 10, the county's Mandatory Spay and Neuter Program for Dogs and Cats, is excluded from the city's adoption of Title 10 and shall not be enforced within the city. That means the sterilization requirements Los Angeles County imposes in unincorporated areas and many contract cities do not reach West Covina residents; owning an unaltered, intact dog or cat is not, by itself, a code violation here.

The city adopted this carve-out along with several others in the same section, including exclusion of Title 10's microchipping requirement (Sec. 6-5(e)) and a locally rewritten pet-limit rule (Sec. 6-5(d)). Where Title 10 as adopted conflicts with the rest of the Municipal Code, Sec. 6-6 requires the two to be read together if possible, and gives the Municipal Code priority only if they genuinely cannot be reconciled. Animal licensing itself is untouched by the spay/neuter exclusion: dog licenses remain mandatory and fees are set locally under Sec. 6-5(c), while cat licensing stays optional.

Enforcement of the rest of adopted Title 10, and of Chapter 6 generally, runs through Sec. 6-7, which makes any violation an infraction unless Title 10 itself specifies a different penalty, and Sec. 6-8, which lets the city treat a violation as a public nuisance abatable through civil, criminal, or administrative proceedings, including injunctive relief. Because the mandatory spay/neuter provision was never adopted, none of that enforcement machinery applies to an owner's choice not to sterilize a pet.