As I have mentioned previously, I am the sole owner of a 13-year-old, 25-pound, Parson Russell Terrier (PRT) named Milo. (You can think of a PRT as a Jack Russell Terrier with long legs and a rough coat.) When he was much younger, he would wander away from the house occasionally and one time was gone for a full day before I found him a few miles away.
At that time I purchased a GPS device that could tell me, at any given moment, where he was located. It came in handy a few times, but for the most part he didn’t wander away very often after his long adventure. Unfortunately, the company I bought the device from was acquired by Tractive, and the replacement device they sent my was much larger, heavier, and more expensive than the one I had before. Needless to say, it was uncomfortable for Milo to wear it and I eventually took it off his collar permanently.
I’m now looking for a replacement device that is cheaper, smaller, but just as reliable as the other two were. He has an electronic doggy door from the house to an expansive backyard, and while the yard is completely fenced, I am sometimes gone for long periods of time and worry that someone could walk up to the fence and grab him while he is outside. If you have a canine GPS for your dog that is small, can be put on a collar, and is not that expensive, I would be interested in hearing about it. There are quite a few available on Amazon, but I would rather get one that someone else uses and can recommend to me.
Lasts +/- a month, does fitness tracking as well. It does take a few minutes to locate your dog when you hit the “lost dog” option–it tracks continuously when the dog is out of safe zones you’ve designated, but it’s pretty approximate. If I remember correctly, @kayaker uses it as well.
I have a Fi on my small-to medium sized dog and like it. I hadn’t really considered it, as he’s pretty much the definition of Velcro dog. But his sister, who was very similar in temperament, ran away during fireworks last year and the trail was cold within minutes. So we made the investment to track him.
I find the logging to be helpful to understand if maybe we’ve had a couple light exercise days in a row and I need to do something more serious with him. I also appreciate knowing where our dog walker has taken him just in case
I started looking and found a whole bunch of GPS trackers for $30 - $40 that don’t require a subscription. All they do is tell you where your dog currently is, along with some history of where he’s been, and nothing else. That’s really all I need to know.
We have cats, but both Pebblebee and Tile seem to do well. We had both on our current senior cat, who has a history of long walkabouts. Moved one to the junior cat when she moved in.
Pebblebee (currently worn by our senior cat, Buddy) uses the Google Find My Device system, Tile (currently worn by our junior cat, Kasya) has their own app. Both rely on other users’ phones picking up the tags to find a location, but since we’re not in a position to be shelling out for monthly subscriptions for (probably heavier) tags with stand-alone connectivity, this does seem to work well. Both tags are lightweight enough that a kitten could wear one on her collar without evident discomfort, both seem to be waterproof (they’ve survived dunkings in water dishes just fine).
If I had to pick just one, preference would go to Pebblebee for being USB-rechargeable. Tile does not have a user-replaceable battery, so we’ll have to replace the whole tag when the battery gives out. Pebblebee is also the one that works with Google, so has a much larger base of phones that will notice and report it.
I don’t know nuthin’ 'bout GPS.
But I just wanna say that when I read your post, I thought
" well, yeah…Pebblebee sounds cute, but why didja name a cat Tile?
