Hanover County, VA Animal Ordinances: Pet Limits (2026)

Section 4-72 of the Hanover County Code makes it unlawful for more than five adult dogs to be owned or harbored on any one tax map parcel zoned AR-1, AR-2, AR-6, RC, R-1, R-2, R-3, R-4, R-5, R-6 or RS, covering essentially every residential and agricultural-residential district in the county. The cap counts adult dogs only; it sets no numeric limit on cats. A grandfather clause protects owners who already had more than five adult dogs, properly licensed, before October 25, 1995: those dogs are exempt from the limit.

But the exemption is not permanent for the household. Once one of those pre-1995 dogs is sold, lost, or dies, the owner loses that slot, and any dog acquired to replace it is subject to the standard five-adult-dog limit going forward, so a household cannot keep replacing grandfathered dogs indefinitely to stay above the cap. The section sits in Article II, Division 4 (General Provisions) of chapter 4, Animals, which the Sheriff's Office Animal Control unit enforces. Section 4-72 itself does not spell out a separate fine, so a violation falls under the article's general enforcement clause, Section 4-77: a violation of any provision of the article is a class 4 misdemeanor unless another section specifically states a different penalty, and an animal control officer may take an owner's dog or cat into custody at the county's public animal shelter and summon the owner to general district court for noncompliance with the article.

This limit applies only inside the residential and agricultural-residential zoning districts named in the section; it does not reach parcels zoned for business, industrial or other non-residential uses.