Dog GPS trackers

[tcufrog]

My dogs have discovered how much fun it is to roam the neighborhood alone and meet all of the friendly neighbors who take them home and pet them. Today, I spent time tracking down our older dog instead of running errands, and by the time I found her the places I needed to go to were closed. It's become a big problem. We're working on making it much harder for them to escape but I'm also considering getting GPS trackers for them. Does anyone have any experience with them?

 

[CynBeth]

Are you talking about the microchip or something different?

 

[tcufrog]

The dogs are already chipped. I'm talking about GPS trackers that fit onto their collars. We live in a huge, hilly neighborhood full of winding streets plus a few home construction sites and a walking trail. We also get coyotes on the edges of our neighborhood. Our neighbor's roaming cat was eaten by one earlier this year.

Last weekend, our smaller dog got out twice and our older dog got out once. Both had a blast roaming the neighborhood and were having the time of their lives when we found them. The little one was getting through the fence and we've secured that. We're still working on keeping the bigger one from escaping. She's very good at sneaking out silently without you noticing when you go out the front or side door. We had a family meeting about being more careful and making sure the dogs don't sneak out behind us but I want a backup plan.

 

[Jennasis]

The Gps won't keep them safe...it will just help you locate them. New fencing can be expensive (but highly effective), or you could beef up the existing fence with an invisible fence system.

 

[tcufrog]

The Gps won't keep them safe...it will just help you locate them. New fencing can be expensive (but highly effective), or you could beef up the existing fence with an invisible fence system.

I agree that GPS won't keep them from getting out. We're working on options for keeping them from escaping. Our neighborhood requires the front fences to be iron. To keep the little dog in we lined the inside with chicken wire and put heavy rocks along the bottom so he couldn't crawl under. The rest of the fence is a sturdy, tall wood fence. We've been keeping an eye out for signs of him digging. We especially don't want him to get under there because the other homes surrounding ours have dogs too. I don't know how they'd react to our dog surprising them in their yard.

I'm looking at it as more of a backup plan. When I finally located my big dog today via our neighborhood Facebook Group, she was at a home about 1/3 mile away. Our neighborhood has more than 700 homes in it so there's plenty of room for them to roam and get lost, even before they reach the neighborhood entrance.

 

[SteveH]

If you're in the Apple echo system I'd look at the AirTags, if not maybe the Tile Pro.

 

[RF536]

We have Whistle. It hooks to their collar and alerts you if they leave the pre-defined area. You can set it up to alert multiple people using texts and or email alerts. You can set up multiple areas, which is nice if you travel with them.
It will also track their daily activities.

 

[Christine]

I don't yet have the GPS tracker but am thinking about it. The only thing stopping me is that my dog never tries to ever leave but it could happen. Anyway, I participate/volunteer with our local Facebook site for Lost and Found dogs. It's really heartbreakng how many get out and are never found. Good news is that the majority are luckily found by a good samaritan. Last month we had a 13 year old dog who somehow got and and he was gone for 19 days. He was found sleeping in someone's yard who finally called Animal Control. The GPS tracker would have cut his "adventure" down to a few hours. The only thing that is probably a negative about them is that the batteries must be monitored closely. There have been some dogs who've gone missing and then the battery died at a certain point. Not sure how long they last.

In your case, they sound like a fabulous idea and should enable you to get them quickly so long as you keep up with the batteries.

 

[mjkacmom]

I used one for our dog because my kids like to take her hiking and let her off leash (she’s a little terrier and lives to run). One time they lost her (found her next to the van in the parking lot). It worked well although she never got lost again (except one time when DH let her off the least at a local park to chase geese, I guess she got turned around because she just ran 8 blocks home, we had to go back to get DH who was looking for her). Please make sure your dogs have tags with your information on them (I post so many missing dog posts on Facebook and can’t understand why all of these dogs don’t have tags). We aren’t allowed front yard fencing, and I had to spend so much $ to get pieces of our wooden backyard fencing fixed because our dog was wandering the neighborhood. If your dogs are wandering, they are also leaving poop that is not picked up.

 

[tcufrog]

Good point about the tags. I looked at her tag last night and all of the info had rubbed off. I'm getting her a new one today. Residents of our neighborhood are good at looking after dogs that get out but I don't want to rely on that. Once, when my younger dog got out, I wasn't at home. A neighborhood friend of mine texted me a photo that she had just seen of my dog on the street that she had just seen on Facebook. Someone had taken the photo and posted it asking whose dog it was. They weren't able to catch him.