Dog GPS

As a follow up to this post, I bought a Tagg tracker to use at the farm. I set the safe zone as our house and fenced in area. If Fred strays outside of that which he tends to do when taking care of business, I use the locate feature on the app and it shows me how far over the hill he is away from us. I mostly use it when it is dark to make sure he is in the area. For the recall, he gets one loud whistle with a "Fred, Come" and he always responds because there is a treat with his name on it. The Tagg uses verizon which seems to be pretty good in our area.

I use garmin astro ,for coyote hunting with hounds,they work good.But this doesn't mean there safe from traffic. You will find them but we try to hunt very remote areas to keep dogs safe from roads.

I like the idea of GPS on the dogs. I don't know anything about them so I'm paying attention to this. I have microchips in the dogs, but sometimes a lost dog is too scared to be caught by strangers. It would be nice to know where they are so you can go to them yourself.

I would add to my earlier post that once we moved from the 13 acre property to a house on the edge of town with an acre and a half we had an invisible fence installed there too, just took the collars with us. When we moved in we had deer in the back yard of about an acre. Within weeks of the dogs being outside we never saw another deer, just the occasional whistle pig or skunk.

Once they learned where the wire was they never went near it. When we got our Standard Poodle she would test it every so often to make sure it was working. Smart dog!

Garmin Astro would work great for your needs.

This property has a couple of acres fenced so I'm not too worried about that area and our dogs are never outside without us because Lucy is only nine pounds (although she has the attitude of a 100 pound dog). I was thinking for more when we are hiking or mountain biking our property because there are lots of trails and being able to let them run with us. Our SPOO is great about wanting to hang with me (I ensure that by always having the pocket of treats!) but I'm not sure how that will play out if a deer runs across our path. That is why I was looking for something as a back up when we are away from the house. I'll check out the gundogsupply.com this evening...thanks.

The people I know that use them for there hunting dogs use the Garmin/Astro brand. There comments are don't go with cheap models because they have found they are being repaired quite a bit. Check out: http://www.gundogsupply.com/ - they will be more than happy to answer questions.

When we first got Jack, our Cattle Dog - the foster mom warned us he was a runaway. We did a LOT of training on his recall (I can whistle REALLY loud) - then I bought a good 1/2-mile range electronic collar. Basically - if he left the yard (mine is fenced on 3 sides - but open to the lake) - I'd whistle twice. If he didn't show up in about 30 seconds, I'd hit the button on the remote. It only took about twice doing that - and he started coming FAST on my whistle :-) Eventually, he learned to not leave the yard.

I guess I'd rather have a dog stick close by, than be able to track them?? If your dog runs - the GPS might tell you where to find the carcass after he gets hit by a car or shot by a neighbor.....

I would be a little concerned about relying on an invisible fence, to keep the dogs safe. Many times, they have been snapping turtles, raccoons, possums, etc. on the property. If these animals had wandered into the perimeter of the invisible fence-the dogs would be at great risk. Maybe I babied my dogs, too much-but I never wanted them to have the 'total farm dog experience' and tangle with wildlife!

When we moved to Maine some years back with our Bouviers, we had an Invisible Fence installed around 4 of our 13 acres. Other than occasional broken wires it worked like a charm. Out in the woods the wire just lay on the ground and they learned very quickly where the wire was. It even crossed a stream in two places. If the GPS works it will only tell you where the dogs are, not keep them where you want them. Now we just have a Standard Poodle therapy dog and she never leaves our sight. What a great breed! Good luck.