Cleveland County, NC Animal Ordinances: Microchipping (2026)

Cleveland County does not impose a general microchip mandate on dogs, cats or ferrets. § 130A-190, it exempts cats from wearing tags and collars if they have been implanted with a microchip carrying the owner's contact information. Microchips also matter at intake and impoundment. Section 3-6(b) treats an animal that is not wearing a collar and valid rabies tag, and is not implanted with a microchip, and is not under restraint, as lost, stray, or unwanted and subject to impoundment. Once an animal is impounded, § 3-6(c) requires the responsible employee to scan the animal and use any information available through a microchip to locate the owner before the animal is adopted out, transferred, or euthanized after the seventy-two-hour holding period.

Attack-trained animals face a stricter rule: § 3-52(e) requires the owner or keeper of any dog trained in the mode of attack to have the animal permanently electronically tagged with a microchip, regardless of species-wide exemptions. Outside of those two contexts, ordinary dog and cat owners in the unincorporated county can rely on a collar and current rabies tag instead of a microchip.