Metro Animal Care and Control

Along with a collar and ID tag with your phone number, microchips are your pet’s best chance of finding their way home if they go missing. Microchips are not GPS trackers; they are small computer chips that are inserted below the skin of pets that store a unique identification number. A microchip is a permanent method of electronic identification. The chip itself is about the size of a grain of rice and is implanted just under the skin between the shoulder blades at the back of a pet's neck. Each chip has a unique number that is detected using a microchip scanner. The microchip number is recorded on a microchip database registry with details about the animal and owner and your contact information. Microchips implanted by Metro Animal Care and Control are registered for the pet’s owner.

When an animal shelter or veterinarian scans a found animal’s chip, they detect the microchip ID number and contact the microchip directory to get the owner’s contact information. Unlike collars and ID tags, microchips are permanent and cannot fall off or get lost if a pet goes missing or is stolen and loses their collar. Dogs that are microchipped are 2.5 times more likely to make it back home and cats are 20 times more likely to be reunited!

For Metro rabies vaccination requirements, visit our rabies information page.

In Davidson County, there are many free-roaming cats, often known as community cats. To prevent the population from growing out of control, MACC has partnered with Pet Community Center to provide services for cats like these. If a cat brought to MACC qualifies for the Community Cat Program, it is spayed/neutered, vaccinated, and then returned to its outdoor home. For more information on the program, visit Pet Community Center's website.

Friends of MACC is a group of volunteers – a group of friends – who wants to help change the lives of the animals in our community. We believe the best way to do that is by rallying around Metro Animal Care and Control, so we can enrich their lives both during and after their stay in the shelter!

Learn more about Friends of MACC

Metro Animal Care and Control is committed to the delivery of humane and responsive animal care and control services to and for the residents and animals of Nashville-Davidson County.

We work with individuals and organizations across Nashville to help domestic animals find caring homes, decrease over-population of cats and dogs through spaying and neutering, support widespread rabies vaccinations, and promote responsible pet ownership.