Keeping pets at home

Keeping pets at home is rewarding for you and your animals. 

As a pet owner, you have a responsibility to keep the pet and the people around you safe and free from nuisance.

Your responsibilities

As a pet owner, you must:

  • register your cat or dog

  • only keep animals that are suitable for your property

  • only keep a number of animals or birds appropriate for your property

  • if appropriate, check with the body corporate to see if there are rules about keeping animals

  • keep your animals in clean and healthy conditions

  • take whatever steps necessary to avoid attracting vermin, creating offensive noise or odours, causing a drainage nuisance, or annoying your neighbours.

The number of animals you can keep

To keep our environment clean, healthy and safe we have introduced limits on the number of animals you can keep on your property.

Our keeping of animals policy contains more information about the animals you can keep on your property.

Animal type Maximum number
Dogs 2
Cats 2
Poultry 5
Rabbits 1
Horses and cattle 1
Sheep and goats 1
Pigs 1

Our responsibilities

As a Council it is our responsibility to:

Most animal complaints are resolved in cooperation with the animal's owner. If we can't resolve the complaint cooperatively, the Local Government Act 1993 allows us to issue an order to an animal owner that requires them to:

  • change the way they look after their animals

  • limit the number or type of animals on their property

  • stop them from owning an animal.

Animals other than pets

If you are keeping animals for business or commercial purposes you may need to apply for Development Consent.

Livestock (including bees) are regulated by the Department of Primary Industries.

We don't manage wildlife (bats, possums, feral cats) unless they have attacked or harmed a person.

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