Wauwatosa, WI Animal Ordinances: Pet Limits (2026)

020, governing this Milwaukee County, Wisconsin city, declares it a public nuisance, and expressly prohibits, keeping, maintaining, sheltering, lodging or possessing more than a combined total of three cats or dogs over the age of three months in any residence, apartment, yard or property in the city. The limit counts cats and dogs together rather than setting a separate cap for each species, so a household with two dogs is limited to one cat, and a household already at three animals cannot add a fourth of either species.

The cap sits inside the same subsection of the chapter that handles animal restrictions generally, alongside the requirements that an owner license each cat or dog over five months old, keep dogs on a leash no longer than ten feet when walked, and provide food, water and weatherproof shelter for every animal kept. Because the code frames exceeding the limit as a nuisance rather than a licensing violation, the city can pursue abatement of the excess animals in addition to, or instead of, a citation, and the same care-and-maintenance standards in the section, covering food, water, shelter and sanitary conditions, continue to apply to every animal a household is permitted to keep.

010, which may investigate a suspected violation, and a household found over the limit faces the chapter's general penalty provisions in addition to any nuisance abatement action.