West Jordan, UT Animal Ordinances: Mandatory Spay/Neuter (2026)

Section 6-3C-5 governs what happens to animals held at the City's impound facility. Animals must be held at least five business days before disposition (subsection A). After that minimum period, subsection B lets the Division of Animal Control destroy, adopt out, or sell any animal not under quarantine or court order; a healthy animal can be adopted by anyone eighteen or older, or sold to an institution doing legitimate scientific research at a price capped by the City Council's uniform fee schedule, plus licensing and rabies vaccination costs if required.

The sterilization rule sits inside that same subsection: an animal that hasn't been spayed or neutered cannot go to a private adopter until a licensed veterinarian sterilizes it, and the adopter, not the City, pays for the procedure before the animal is released. The rule doesn't reach animals sold to research institutions or animals an owner reclaims directly, and it doesn't create a general spay-or-neuter mandate for pets already owned in the City; it only closes off the shelter-adoption pathway for an unaltered animal. Owners who voluntarily surrender a pet for destruction or placement don't have to wait out the five-day minimum hold (subsection D), and the Division can destroy an animal immediately, without court order, whenever an officer judges it necessary for humane reasons or to remove an imminent danger to people or property (subsection H).