West Covina, CA Animal Ordinances: Pet Limits (2026)

When West Covina adopted Los Angeles County's Title 10 as its Animal Control Ordinance in 2017, the city council rewrote one section entirely: Sec. 6-5(d) deletes county rule 10.20.038 and replaces it with a locally drafted pet-limit rule. Under the replacement, it is unlawful to keep more than three dogs at any residence without an animal facility license, and each of those dogs must carry an individual city license. The section carves out one exception: a service dog licensed under Sec. 10.20.090 that serves a person disabled within the meaning of California Government Code Section 12926(i) or (j) is not counted toward the three-dog limit, so a household with a service animal can still keep three additional dogs.

The cat limit is set at four per residence without an animal facility license, but unlike dogs, cat licensing itself is only optional and recommended, not required. A resident who wants to keep more than three dogs or four cats must obtain an animal facility license from the city rather than an individual pet license; the code leaves the facility license process to the fee schedule and licensing division adopted elsewhere in Title 10.

The pet-limit rule sits inside the broader Chapter 6 enforcement scheme. Violations of Chapter 6, including keeping unlicensed excess animals, are infractions under Sec. 6-7 unless Title 10 as adopted specifies a different penalty, and the city can also treat an ongoing violation as a nuisance subject to civil, criminal or administrative abatement, including injunctive relief, under Sec. 6-8.