Yuba City, CA Animal Ordinances: Mandatory Spay/Neuter (2026)

Sections 4-12.330 and 4-12.470 of the Yuba City Municipal Code bar Animal Control Services, which Sutter County's Community Services Director administers for the City under Section 4-12.110, from selling, giving away, or transferring any dog, or any cat over six months old, except as state law allows: Food and Agricultural Code Division 4, Chapter 1.5 (Section 30520 et seq.) for dogs and Division 14.5, Chapter 2 (Section 31760 et seq.) for cats. Those state provisions are enforced locally through a deposit requirement at redemption. Under Section 4-12.350(d), an owner redeeming an impounded dog that is not spayed or neutered must pay the deposit required by Section 4-12.330 in addition to outstanding fees and license costs; Section 4-12.351(b) applies the same deposit to a stray dog redeemed by a new owner.

Section 4-12.440(b) imposes the parallel deposit under Section 4-12.470 for an unaltered impounded cat redeemed from the shelter. The City backs the deposit with a licensing incentive: under Section 4-12.211(a), a dog owner who presents a veterinarian's certificate showing the dog has been spayed or neutered gets the license fee cut by half or more, and Section 4-12.211(c) stacks that with a senior discount so a spayed or neutered dog owned by someone 60 or older can be licensed for a quarter of the standard fee or less. There is no outright mandatory spay/neuter law in Yuba City; the deposit and fee-discount structure are the mechanisms the code actually uses.