Philadelphia, PA Animal Ordinances: Pet Groomer Rules (2026)

00 per application. Subsection (7)(b) turns that authorization into a duty: whenever a groomer, veterinarian, veterinary hospital, or boarding kennel provides services for a dog required to be licensed, the groomer must verify the dog is licensed, accepting either a current license tag under subsection (5) or a record in the City's dog-license database as proof. If the owner can't produce proof of a license or a pending application, the groomer must take a license application and collect the fee under subsection (6) on the spot.

If the owner refuses to license the dog altogether, the groomer must give the owner written notice of the City's licensing requirement, have the owner sign it, and keep the signed notice on file for two years. The underlying license fee is $40 for an unsterilized dog and $16 for a sterilized one under subsection (1), with a 50% senior discount and fee waivers for guide dogs and government-owned law-enforcement dogs under subsection (3). Section 10-115(1) sets the default Chapter 10-100 penalty, a fine of $150 to $300, as the punishment for a Section 10-103 violation; unlike most of this chapter, Section 10-103 is specifically excluded from the repeat-violation enhancement in subsection 10-115(2), so a groomer who repeatedly skips license verification still faces only the base $150-$300 fine rather than an escalating penalty.