County of Santa Clara Division of Animal Services

Commercial Kennel Business License (veterinary hospitals exempted)

No fee applies to a veterinary hospital for its own boarding of animals. Santa Clara County's Ordinance Code, Title B, Division B31 ('Animals and Fowl'), Chapter I, defines a 'commercial kennel' as any person engaged in commercial breeding, boarding, training, sale or hire of dogs or cats for compensation, and it explicitly exempts state-licensed veterinary hospitals from that definition: 'Animal hospitals maintained by a veterinarian licensed by the State of California as part of the practice of veterinary medicine, animal shelters or private kennels shall not be considered commercial kennels.' A veterinary hospital or clinic that boards animals as part of its own practice therefore does not need the County's commercial-kennel business license for that boarding activity, even though a stand-alone, non-veterinary boarding or breeding kennel operation does. Animal-control field service and pet licensing in Santa Clara County are themselves fragmented by city rather than run by one countywide office: County Animal Services covers the unincorporated area directly and provides sheltering only for Morgan Hill, Gilroy and Sunnyvale, the Silicon Valley Animal Control Authority licenses Campbell, Los Gatos, Monte Sereno, Santa Clara and (dogs only) Mountain View, and San José Animal Care Services covers San Jose, Saratoga, Cupertino and Milpitas — but the veterinary-hospital exemption from the commercial-kennel license is a county ordinance provision that applies regardless of which of those three providers handles day-to-day animal control in a given city.