Quick answer — Germantown Municipal Code Sec. 5-8 places two duties on a dog owner: remove waste immediately from public ground and other people’s property, and “regularly rid” your own property of it. That second clause makes Germantown the only jurisdiction in the local set whose pet-waste code reaches the owner’s own lot — the pet-waste sections in Collierville, Memphis and Shelby County all stop at the property line. A violation is a misdemeanor, and Sec. 1-10 sets the penalty at a fine not exceeding $500.00 for each violation, with each day treated separately.
Are you legally required to pick up dog poo in Germantown?
Yes, and in two separate places. Germantown Municipal Code Sec. 5-8 is titled Animal waste, and it carries two clauses that do different work.1
The first clause covers ground that is not yours. An owner “shall immediately remove any excreta deposited by his animal on public walks, recreation areas, public streets or private property of others.” The trigger word is immediately — the code describes removal at the moment of deposit, not a return trip.
The second clause is the one most residents have never read: “Residents shall regularly rid their property of animal and pet waste.” That sentence applies to your own yard, and it is the reason this guide exists.
Does Germantown require you to clean up your own yard?
Yes — and that is unusual. Of the four pet-waste sections that govern this market, Sec. 5-8 is the only one with an own-lot clause.
| Jurisdiction | Section | What it reaches | Penalty |
|---|---|---|---|
| Germantown | Sec. 5-8 | Public ground, others’ property, and the resident’s own property | Misdemeanor under Sec. 5-10(b); Sec. 1-10 sets a fine not exceeding $500.00 for each violation, each day separate |
| Collierville | § 94.29 | Property other than the owner’s, unless removed immediately | § 94.99(A): not more than $50 or the maximum amount permitted by state law, whichever is greater, for each offense |
| Memphis | Sec. 8-3-7 | Property other than the owner’s; prompt removal and sanitary disposal | Sec. 8-5-9 applies state-law fines; the Sec. 8-24-4 schedule has no line item for defecation |
| Shelby County (unincorporated) | Sec. 4-131(d) | Public property and others’ private property | Sec. 4-135: a maximum of $50.00 per violation, per day, plus court costs |
Sources for every row are listed at the foot of this guide.1234
Read the table by column rather than by row. Collierville, Memphis and Shelby County describe a duty a dog owner owes to other people — a neighbor’s lawn, a park, a right-of-way. Germantown describes that duty and then adds a standing obligation about the condition of a resident’s own ground. A yard in Collierville that has gone three months without collection is not addressed by the town’s pet-waste section; the nearest rule is the general health-nuisance provision, § 95.08(A).2 The same yard in Germantown is described by its pet-waste section directly.
What the general nuisance provisions still reach
The comparison above is between pet-waste sections, and that scope matters. Each of the other three jurisdictions carries a general nuisance provision that can reach a condition on an owner’s own property — they simply are not pet-waste rules and do not name pet waste.
- Collierville § 95.08(A) — a general health nuisance provision.2
- Memphis Sec. 8-8-1 — bars keeping animals so as to be “a nuisance either because of odor or contagion of disease.”3
- Shelby County Sec. 4-2 — defines a nuisance to include “soiling of any public or private property.”4
So the precise claim is narrower than it first looks, and worth stating exactly: Sec. 5-8 is the only pet-waste section in this set with an own-lot clause. A Collierville or Memphis resident whose yard has become a genuine nuisance is not outside every rule — they are outside the pet-waste rule, and inside a general one that was not written for this.
What is the fine for not picking up dog poop in Germantown?
There is no ticket price. The chain runs through two sections: Sec. 5-10(b) makes a violation of the animal chapter a misdemeanor, and Sec. 1-10, the general penalty provision, sets the ceiling at a fine not exceeding $500.00 for each such violation, with each day a violation continues treated as a separate violation.5
Two things follow. The $500.00 figure is a statutory maximum a court may impose, not an amount printed on a citation — anyone quoting “the fine is $500” has converted a ceiling into a price. And the per-day clause means a standing condition is not a single offense; a yard left in violation accrues.
Collierville’s number works the same way and is quoted wrong just as often. § 94.99(A) reads “not more than $50 or the maximum amount permitted by state law, whichever is greater, for each offense.” The trailing clause is part of the rule.2
Can I report my neighbor for not picking up dog poop?
Germantown routes neighborhood code questions through its Neighborhoods & Code Compliance office, and that page is the correct starting point for a complaint about a property’s condition.6
What this guide will not do is hand you a form URL. No complaint form for this appears on any City page located in the Sept 2026 research, so a specific link here would be a guess dressed as a citation. Start at the code-compliance page and ask there.
Before it gets that far, the distinction in the table above is worth applying. A dog that defecates on your lawn and is walked away engages Sec. 5-8’s first clause — an immediate-removal duty owed to you. A neighbor whose own back yard has gone uncollected engages the second clause instead. Both are in the code; they are different clauses with different facts behind them.
How does Germantown’s rule compare to a leash rule?
They are separate sections and separate duties, which matters because the two get conflated in conversation. Sec. 5-3(a) handles restraint: no dog at large, leash required off a fenced lot.7 Sec. 5-8 handles waste. A leashed dog whose waste is left behind satisfies one section and violates the other.
How should bagged dog waste be disposed of in Germantown?
This guide does not answer that, and the reason is worth stating plainly rather than filling with a plausible-sounding rule.
The City of Germantown publishes a Trash and Recycling hub, including a collection map and a Waste Wizard item-lookup tool.8 No City page located in the Sept 2026 research addresses bagged dog waste as an item, and the Waste Wizard is the City’s own mechanism for exactly this kind of question. Check the item there, or ask Public Works.
What Sec. 5-8 settles is the removal duty. Where the bag goes afterward is a solid-waste question the City answers through a different department, and inventing an answer here would put a fabricated municipal rule on a page whose entire value is that it quotes the real ones.
Sources
- Germantown Municipal Code Sec. 5-8, Animal waste — library.municode.com — Germantown Sec. 5-8. Accessed Sept 15 2026.
- Collierville Code of Ordinances § 94.29, Defecation by dogs or cats — codelibrary.amlegal.com — § 94.29; § 94.99(A), penalty — codelibrary.amlegal.com — § 94.99; § 95.08(A), general health nuisance — codelibrary.amlegal.com — § 95.08. Accessed Sept 15 2026.
- Memphis Code of Ordinances Sec. 8-3-7, Defecation by dogs or cats (Ord. 5843, 2023) — library.municode.com — Memphis Sec. 8-3-7; Sec. 8-24-4, fine schedule — library.municode.com — Memphis Sec. 8-24-4; Sec. 8-8-1, animals kept so as to be a nuisance — library.municode.com — Memphis Sec. 8-8-1. Accessed Sept 15 2026.
- Shelby County Code of Ordinances Sec. 4-131 — library.municode.com — Sec. 4-131; Sec. 4-135, enforcement — library.municode.com — Sec. 4-135; Sec. 4-2, definition of nuisance — library.municode.com — Sec. 4-2. Accessed Sept 15 2026.
- Germantown Municipal Code Sec. 1-10, General penalty for violation of Code — library.municode.com — Germantown Sec. 1-10. Accessed Sept 15 2026.
- City of Germantown, Neighborhoods & Code Compliance — germantown-tn.gov — Neighborhoods & Code Compliance. Accessed Sept 15 2026.
- Germantown Municipal Code Sec. 5-3, Restraint — library.municode.com — Germantown Sec. 5-3. Accessed Sept 15 2026.
- City of Germantown, Trash and Recycling — germantown-tn.gov — Trash and Recycling. Accessed Sept 15 2026.
