Pet trackers are small devices that attach to your dog’s collar and, typically, use a combination of GPS and cellular signals to keep you apprised of your pet’s whereabouts in real time.
If your dog goes missing—or if you just want to know where it is, whether it’s roaming your yard or in the company of another caregiver—you can use the tracker’s smartphone app to locate it on a map. (Trackers that don’t use both GPS and cellular may be enticing because they don’t impose a recurring cellular service fee, but they have far more limited tracking abilities.)
These devices are very different from the small microchip identification tags that many dogs have implanted beneath their skin. Microchips rely on someone finding your pet, “reading” it with a specialized electronic tool, and then contacting you. By contrast, a GPS pet tracker enables you to actively track a missing pet in real time with a high degree of accuracy.
Most GPS pet trackers also allow you to create a safe zone around your home—defined either by being close enough to still be connected to your WiFi, or by staying within a geofence that you demarcate on a map—and then alert you if your dog leaves that zone. Some also let you designate danger zones and alert you if your dog is approaching a busy street, say, or a body of water.
Most of the devices also serve as a fitness tracker for your pooch, helping you set daily exercise goals based on their breed, weight, and age, and letting you know how many steps, miles, or active minutes your dog is getting each day and over time. Sheepadoodles require a lot of activity, so these features were especially appealing to my family: It’s nice to know if we’d managed to get Luna enough exercise on any given day, or if we hadn’t and needed to extend her last walk of the day.
