PET TRACKERS—USEFUL, RELIABLE, AFFORDABLE?

I’ve been impressed with all the advertising I’ve seen online for pet trackers, devices that use GPS to track your dog (or cat!) when they’re off-leash and out of sight, with your permission or not, escaped from confinement, or simply on a walk-about where you cannot follow.

I asked for personal experiences and recommendations from friends who’ve used pet trackers, and I got responses from all over the world! I hope their comments will answer some of the questions you might have as well.

I said, “I’d like to hear about your experiences with GPS pet trackers (not corrective boundary collars): what pet you used a GPS tracker on, why you decided to use a tracker, what tracker you chose and why. How did it work out for you? Was the cost reasonable? Did the tracker function as advertised? Were the support services from the seller helpful? Would you recommend this tracker to a friend?”

I added: “Of course, most trackers are probably bought for dogs, but if you’ve used a tracker on a different pet—a cat?—tell us about that, too.”

Marla Cooper (California) I use Fi. I have tried all of them and prefer Fi because your receiver is your cell phone and you don’t have to carry around a tracking device receiver. If I were to hike in the woods, I would use a purely GPS tracker for that (one that would need a receiver)—like a Marco Polo. For every day use, I use Fi3 and have custom collars with my phone number on each dog. It provides great peace of mind.

Eileen Anderson (Arkansas) I bought a Fi Series 2 almost two years ago. I bought it because I was afraid the adolescent dog I had adopted would jump my chain-link fence, and I wanted that added layer of protection. I like it. It has some limitations in precision and the time it takes to notify of a ‘lost’ dog, but that is typical for that price range and works fine in my (semi-urban) locale. It has great battery life—the tradeoff being that it doesn’t check location as often. I wanted a lighter one, so upgraded to a Fi Series 3. It wasn’t significantly lighter, though, and many, many users are saying that the Series 3 doesn’t function as well as its predecessor. So I returned the Series 3, availing myself of their 30-day refund period, and purchased an adapter on Etsy to let me switch the Fi 2 to a different collar. (That series is permanently attached to the collar it comes on; I had to cut it off with a box cutter.) I am happy with my ‘old’ Fi Series 2, new collar, and collar adapter. I hope it lasts until Fi comes up with a Series 4 without the problems of the Series 3.

Em E Wolf (Vermont) We use the Fi with our rescue dogs. It’s been pretty good for the price. The one thing I would say is their customer service is just deplorable. If you have a problem, good luck reaching them. But in general, it’s a good system for an affordable price.

Kat Camplin (California) I have the Fi Series 2 for both of my dogs. I liked the idea of activity tracking but soon found out that the unit forms a nice little handle on the collar for dogs to grab. I caught Huck dragging Twyla along the ground by her collar, so the collars came off for everyday use. I do use them for hiking and travel. Once the GPS is acquired at a new location, it does seem to track paths better than my phone, so for slow movements it’s more accurate. I also have the geofence around my home, so when we leave in the car, it pings that my dogs have left the house. It does let me get about a half-mile away before it pings, but I’m traveling in a car. I imagine it would work much better for a dog slowly leaving the area. It also notices when the paired phone and collar units leave each other. If I leave my dogs in the car while paying for gas, it notices that I’m 100 feet away. I find this reassuring for travel, knowing that if my dog sneaks off, I’ll get alerted without having to keep an eye on them all the time. That said, it does need a cell signal, so in areas without cell service the units don’t work at all.

Adrienne Critchlow (United Kingdom) I’m in the UK and use Tractive trackers as these are designed for use on dogs: waterproof, long battery life, and GPS-based. I won’t use things like Air Tags as these are reliant on someone with a mobile being near enough to pick up a signal, so [they are] are intermittent and unreliable.

Paula Babbicola (Germany) I’m in Germany and I use Tractive. Their customer service has been great to me. I’m on their premium plan. It’s affordable for me, I can use it worldwide, and generally my issues have stemmed more from my phone not connecting to the mobile network rather than from the tracker itself. (Germany has pretty spotty cell-phone coverage sometimes.) The health tracking has also been great and has enabled us to confirm that certain issues we suspected were real.

Colette Kase (Mexico) There was a lovely case locally. A woman posted on Facebook that she had picked up a cat after it had been hit by a car and had taken it for treatment. It had extensive injuries, but it also had an Air Tag on its collar. Anyone who put an Air Tag on their cat must love them. The whole community was gripped by her posts documenting the cat’s injuries and then raising money to pay for treatment. In the meantime, she couldn’t work out why the cat’s guardians hadn’t tracked him down. She thought it was like a GPS. People following the story tried to explain what she needed to do so the cat’s guardians could connect with the Air Tag. I certainly had no idea. Apparently, she had to keep an iPhone near the Air Tag long enough for the people to connect. Anyway she was finally able to do it and the cat’s people found her and were reunited with the cat. Not sure an Air Tag is the most efficient way of tracking your pet in this kind of situation.

Breanna Norris (Maine) I use a Garmin in rural Maine. There are a number of pros and cons. It’s not perfect.

Jennifer Lowe Davis (Virginia) I use the Whistle GPS tracker. We have used the company since 2017, when it was still in its infancy and called Tagg. We bought it at the time because our beagle would follow his nose anywhere it would take him. I felt peace of mind once we had it. No matter how vigilant we were, there is always the opportunity when a delivery person leaves the gate open. It reliably tracked my beagle when he was on the run for 45 minutes. Even though our current dog has amazing recall, we still use the GPS tracker because we take her hiking off-leash. As a trainer, I recommend a GPS tracker to anyone that likes to take their dog off-leash. I have found it to be very accurate, and their customer service helpful. I think for what you are getting, the cost is worth it. I don’t think the cost is onerous for dog owners in my area, which is northern Virginia.

Sue Wilson (Ontario) I’m in a fairly rural part of southern Ontario. I use Tractives and although that does give me general peace of mind, the only time I ever really needed it (when one of my dogs took the wrong fork in a path and I didn’t notice right away), I was out of range and couldn’t get an updated location of him on my phone. Luckily, I wasn’t alone so had the other person stay there while I headed back home to try and get in phone range. [The dog] found my friend long before I got a read on him. It was super stressful. But it still gives me some comfort versus having no chance of locating them. I find the cost of having multiples to be quite reasonable (which was part of my reason for choosing that brand) but I wish there was some way to track without needing my phone to have service. I probably would recommend for someone in an urban area but maybe not in a rural one.

Nikki Lussier (British Columbia) I have used Tractive for a few dogs. The unit itself works out of cell range, in that if you are at home on your computer you could follow the track. However, to use the app on your phone and be in the vicinity of the dog, you require cell coverage. Took me a bit to grasp that part of it. So it’s not ideal for those of us who hike out of cell coverage routinely. However, within cell range it’s great.

I have several stories, but here’s one:

One of our dogs, Kismet, has fairly good recall (I’ll never be so bold as to say 100%) and is very bonded to me. Our second dog Rocket was named Rocky when he first came to us. We changed his name the first time he escaped the house when I wasn’t home (although I had given all the lectures and reminders about never letting our guard down near a door or gate because he was an escape risk, being relatively new to our family with a boatload of fears). According to my horrified husband, “He took off like a Rocket!!!” So the name Rocket stuck. That day Rocket put on five miles in less than an hour, crossed four lanes of traffic while in sight and nearly gave me a heart attack. But we got him home safely and he never left the home again without a Tractive (foreshadowing).

So then we were going for a nice easy stroll one evening (more foreshadowing). We have a huge river delta across the road from our home. We walked all the way across the sandbar to the river. Kismet was enjoying his off-lead time while Rocket was on his long line. My husband kept begging me to let Rocket off. I explained why it was not a good idea with the two of them since we were relatively close to roads … and then I did it anyway! I should mention that both dogs are sled dogs. They didn’t have a great start in life, but if there is one thing they love, it’s sprinting. They are lightning fast.

So on this particular walk, I let them do a little sprint together and then called them back, thinking I’d hook Rocket right back up to his long lead before the two of them got too ramped up. Except before they reached us, they took a 90-degree turn and ran flat out toward home. And then they took a different path up to the road so Rocket didn’t recognize where he was. And then Kismet promptly knew this was a bad idea and ran back to me, leaving Rocket completely disoriented and scared. Ooooh those lessons, when your intuition was right but you didn’t listen to it and now it was potentially disastrous.

My husband was sprinting after Rocket (except much slower) knowing he was potentially headed to a busy road if he stayed straight. Meanwhile I had my phone and was opening the Tractive app. I ran home, got my vehicle and put Kismet in with me. I could see Rocket’s blue dot on the phone screen, Rocketing around the neighborhood (while [I was] imagining my husband coughing up a lung by now!). I could see that Rocket thankfully ran back down to the beach and was undoubtedly looking for Kismet. Then I saw him looping back and coming towards our frontage road again. So I drove our vehicle right to where his blue dot was headed on the screen. I got out and sat/laid on the trail right where Rocket came up (since dogs are more likely to slow or stop if they see you lying down looking silly or hurt). I had smelly treats in my hand which I reached out to the side without looking at him and just talked calmly. He slowed enough to sniff and I was able to grab his harness. Back into our vehicle we went, both dogs looking very pleased, and within a total of about 15 minutes (which seemed much longer) we were home safe.

My husband had meanwhile had a huge run through the neighborhood while people pointed and yelled which direction the fast little dog had run! He was less than pleased. And without Tractive I would have been doing the same!

Photo of Kismet and Rocket attached!