SAN DIEGO -- Tens of thousands of San Diegans have microchipped their pets to help find them if they get lost but many have discovered that not all microchips are alike.

Animal microchipping has become a global business and as a result many different microchips are now on the market. Unfortunately, not all scanners can read all microchips.

Lisa Chou experienced this firsthand when she adopted a dog on the east coast.

Chou, who is a native of Australia, asked for a microchip that would be recognized internationally.

“And then when I got here [in San Diego], they told me they couldn’t read my chip and so I had to get a new chip,” she said.

But even with two different chips, Chou wondered whether her dog was fully protected.

“I was worried that I’m going to have to keep on getting different chips every time I move and that my dog is just going to be full of chips,” said Chou.

There are two main microchip types. The oldest uses a 10-digit number to identify your pet. The new chips use a 15-digit number.

“If you have a pet that has a 15-digit chip and it goes into an animal shelter that doesn’t have the capability, doesn’t have the scanner to read that 15-digit chip, it’s basically an orphaned pet with no family,” said John Van Zante, spokesperson for the Helen Woodward Animal Center in Rancho Santa Fe.

Van Zante says the center has the capability to read both 10 and 15-digit chips. However, not all shelters do.

Up until recently the San Diego County Animal Services Department could only read the 10-digit numbers but they are now in the process of testing universal scanners that read all chips and have no intention of going back to 10-digit scanners only.

They say the main problem lies with the manufacturers.

“The marketplace is just going to have to work out and see which chip becomes the predominant one, or if no one chip becomes predominant then we need to have excellent quality scanners that pick up all the chips rapidly and in an accurate manner,” said David Johnson, Animal Medical Operations Manager for the County of San Diego.

Meanwhile, some people like Chou are just choosing to give their pets both.