EL PASO, Texas -- The city of El Paso requires you to get your pet microchipped. It’s supposed to help reunite pets with their owners, but one El Pasoan said her pet's microchip didn't work.

"It's like defeating the purpose. We vaccinated, spayed, neuter, have them microchipped,” said Lower Valley resident, Dale Manning.

When two of Manning's cats went missing she went looking for them at Animal Control.

"Ran down there and found him and I kept on telling them he was chipped but they said they could not read it,” Manning said.

The problem is not all scanners at Animal Control were reading a chip called a "crystal" microchip.

"No one was aware that they could not read the crystal chips,” Said Manning.

KFOX asked Animal Control interim director Pat Fowler about the problem.

"I'm not familiar with this particular case. We do have those scanners now, the most modern scanners that should be able to read crystal. At that particular time it's possible that an old scanner was used,” said Fowler.

It's something that ended up costing Manning extra cash.

"I went ahead and had him rechipped, revaccinated because I didn't have his paperwork,” Said Manning. “I brought him back over to my veterinarian and he scanned him and now my cat has two chips.”

Manning said she was able to recover one cat but unfortunately lost the other which also had a chip.

“They didn't tell me they had her, I didn't see her and she was put to sleep the day after I was there.” Said Manning, as she showed a picture of the cat. “I know that Animal Control, they have a hard job and they do a good job, they just need to update the scanners.”

Fowler told KFOX they're now switching out all old scanners for new ones. He also said unfortunately there are times when a human error can occur which may miss the chip; he recommends also having a tag on your pet. They also said if your pet is missing you should go down and look for your pet physically, in case the chip isn't being read.