Rowan County, NC Animal Ordinances: Microchipping (2026)

Section 5-72 requires every dog and cat four months or older to have a current rabies vaccination, and Section 5-73 governs how that vaccination must be proven day to day. ,' along with a vaccination certificate. Subsection (b) makes it unlawful for an owner or keeper to fail to provide the animal with a collar or harness carrying that current tag, or an implanted microchip that allows for animal control to determine the vaccination is current, and requires that the collar and tag, or the microchip alternative, be present on the animal at all times.

In practice this means a chipped dog or cat still has to be identifiable by animal control as currently vaccinated, so the chip has to be registered in a way officers can actually check; a chip that only stores an ID number without linking to vaccination status does not satisfy the rule as written. Section 5-73(c) backs this up with an impoundment consequence: a dog or cat found without a currently valid rabies tag is subject to impoundment under the county's general impoundment rules, and Section 5-73(d) separately makes it unlawful to use one animal's rabies tag on a different animal.