Are There GPS Tracking Services for Dogs and Cats?
Location tracking devices for dogs and cats have been around for a couple of years now and they work quite the same way that a GPS unit would work in your cell phone or in a stand-alone navigational unit for your car. The only difference is that the GPS tracking unit is embedded in your pet's collar and you use a separate unit to determine the pet's location using radio signals.
The collar comes with a hand held receiver with a screen on it. It looks like a cross between a walkie-talkie and a cell phone. A quality unit will have a screen that shows you the speed, direction and distance in which your lost pet has decided to travel. You then use the unit to track where your lost dog or cat should be. These units are connected to satellites and can help you locate your pet within ten meters of where he or she is found. These types of units cost anywhere from $200 to $600.
One challenge might be to make sure that you always have the collar on the dog and that you make a habit of keeping the receiver on your person. It is all very well to be out for a walk in a park but if your dog gets off his leash and takes off and you do not have the other half of the unit with you then you will have no way of receiving the signals about the dog's location.
The battery in these types of units also needs to be charged on a regular basis. If you forget to charge it then the remote control collar will not work either. They work very much like cell phones and needed to be charged every day to work.
This type of GPS unit is great for that alpha dog who loves to dig under the fence to escape or leap over the fence to get away. It is also a good collar to get for a cat that disappears for days.
If you have show cats or dogs that you are afraid could be stolen it also might be a good idea to outfit them with this type of collar
These pet collars are wonderful for keeping track of your pets. The only problem is that for the collar to work in the event that your pet goes missing, the collar must stay on the pet's neck. Sadly, and in way too many cases, a dog or cat loses a collar when they get lost.
Yet another issue with these pet tracking collars is that they are battery operated. Most take a cell phone battery but if it expires for any reason or falls out of the collar, then the collar will no longer be able to transmit signals.
It is also common, when prized pets are stolen, for the collars to be cut off the pet and put in a location far away from where the pet will end up so that it cannot be tracked.