“No, Georgia Has No Law Against Keeping a Donkey in Your Bathtub”
The claim that it is illegal to keep a donkey in a bathtub in Georgia is a fabricated legal myth with no basis in any Georgia statute, ordinance, or regulation. No equivalent law has been found in any other U.S. state either.
A Traveling Legal Myth With Colorful Origins
This is one of the internet's most persistent legal urban legends, freely attributed to Georgia, Arizona, Oklahoma, and even Brooklyn, New York depending on the source — a telltale sign of myth-making rather than genuine legal history. The story always comes packaged with a colorful origin tale: in 1924, a farmer or merchant near Kingman, Arizona allegedly let his donkey sleep in an old bathtub. When a dam burst and flooded the town, the donkey floated downstream inside its porcelain vessel, requiring an expensive, labor-intensive rescue. Outraged townspeople then demanded a law. It is entirely fictional, with no documented historical basis.
No Evidence in Georgia or Arizona
Legal researchers have searched Georgia's statutes and Arizona's code and found no donkey-bathtub prohibitions in either. The Tucson.com fact-checking team, the legal site Enjuris, and fact-checkers including Snopes have all concluded the law does not exist.
Why the Myth Keeps Spreading
What makes this myth so sticky is its formula: it is absurdly specific, vaguely plausible (small towns do sometimes pass oddly precise ordinances), and irresistible to share. Internet 'crazy laws' listicle sites copy from each other without verification, and through sheer repetition, fiction accumulates the appearance of fact.
Georgia's Real Quirky Laws Are Different
Georgia does have some genuine quirky laws — Gainesville has a ceremonial ordinance about eating fried chicken with utensils — but those can actually be found in municipal codes. The donkey-bathtub ban lives only in the imagination of listicle writers.
Where the story gets it wrong
Some listicle sites attempt to pin the law to Jonesboro, Georgia. In fact, they provide no ordinance number, no municipal code reference, and no verifiable source, so the claim cannot be confirmed there or anywhere else.
The law is often described as existing in multiple states at once — Georgia, Arizona, Oklahoma, and even New York — which is itself a strong indicator that it is a myth rather than a genuine law repeated across jurisdictions.
The story is often paired with a vivid 1924 flood origin tale that makes it sound historically documented. Multiple fact-checkers have confirmed this account has no historical basis.
No such law exists. A search of the Official Code of Georgia Annotated (O.C.G.A.), Georgia municipal codes, and official animal protection statutes yields zero references to any restriction on keeping donkeys in bathtubs — at the state, county, or municipal level.
- Current status
- Unknown
- Penalty
- N/A — law does not exist
- Jurisdiction
- Claimed to apply to the state of Georgia, USA. Some versions specify Jonesboro, GA. No verified jurisdiction exists for this law anywhere.