I would like to try a dog tracker to keep track of a farm dog who sometimes wanders if chasing a deer, etc. (We have about 200 acres he’s allowed to be on. The other farm dogs don’t do this–it’s just him). I tried Whistle a few years ago but it was not reliable enough and he ultimately lost it. Curious if others have tried other brands. I am less concerned about creating an electronic fence for training, and more concerned that I can find him in close to real time on my phone when he wanders. I am getting a lot of ads for Halo 3, which looks pretty sturdy for farm dog life. The cell coverage is a little hit or miss, and the area is partially wooded, partially open fields.
Garmin. It’s held up to hunting dog use, I’m sure it would be fine for farm dog use.
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With the Garmin, do you have to buy data access monthly after buying the collar and hand held? Or are you good to go once buying the equipment?
DoggoFind seems to be the favorite around me. It uses both GPS and cellular, so you’d have the added expense of adding a sim card from your cellular carrier. Overall cost is pretty high.
Cheapo alternative is an Apple airtag, provided you and others nearby are iphone users.
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I wouldn’t recommend an Airtag for an animal on a 200 acre farm. It’s not likely to work where there are no humans with their bluetooth cellphone on their person passing by within 30 ft of the dog.
As OP referenced in the thread title, GPS will be essential for the purpose, and yes they are definitely more pricey. But a cheaper bluetooth alternative is a waste of money as they very unlikely to find an animal in the situation description in the OP.
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Good to go after buying the collar and the hand held. It’s pricey though!
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I believe I addressed that by adding my provision related to Apple airtags, didn’t I?
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We use something called PetBiz. It relies on a combo of GPS and cell signal, and for were we live, it’s pretty reliable. Our dog can wander over more than 200 acres.
It was the cheapest of the alternatives we looked at.
You can pay for the subscription either monthly or yearly.
The con to PetBiz is the user documentation has been translated badly from Chinese. Getting it set up on both DH’s and my phone was a bit of a challenge, but now it works perfectly.
Look into the Spot On dog fence. Yes, it is expensive, but it is really awesome and a whole lot less expensive and traumatic than having your dog hit by a car or lost forever. We have 40 acres at our farm and this collar and app allow us to set up a GPS boundary not only at the farm but also at our house and anywhere else we go (eg. south for the winter). It is like an Invisible Fence but minus the wire and has tracking if the dog goes outside of the boundary. www.spotonfence.com There is also a product called Halo which is a competitor to Spot On. It is similar but different.
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My Garmin arrived yesterday and I got the collars set up today! Will be interested to see how it all holds up.
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It holds up to our upland hunting dogs doing 18 miles + per hunt, including creek/lake retrieves. I hope you’re happy with yours!!
I have a large 8 month old puppy who is a chew machine right now. I am most concerned about her getting her friend’s antenna! I asked her to please not destroy it in the first day. We’ll see!
I had that happen before, so do be careful! 
Hmmmmm, that’s a really good point. Our younger dog was out of the chew monster stage when we got the tracker for the older dog.
It’s a small thing that attached to his collar:
But I can totally see an enthusiastic puppy chewing to right off his buddy’s collar while playing.
Maybe soak it in Bitter Apple?
So, I think I have the collars and handheld paired correctly, and the tracking shows up on the handheld (and also my cell phone). But periodically, I am getting a “?” symbol for one or both dogs, and it’s telling me I have lost GPS for one or both collars. I was thinking that maybe I didn’t connect properly to the satellites at the outset and that maybe I was just connected to the collars on Bluetooth or something. But my next door neighbor told me yesterday that when she tried to use GPS e-fencing for her dogs, the e-fence vendor told her the satellite coverage is spotty around her property. Does that sound plausible? We live in the midwest. Gently rolling hills, woods, pasture. Semi suburban, semi rural. I know cell coverage is a little spotty on our properties on the rural ends, but I thought GPS, unlike cell, would be available everywhere?
I would give Garmin tech support a call. Our transmitterwill periodically change the dog type setting from pointer to hound, but does not lose the dogs unless they go waaaayyyy far out (miles).
I kind of like the air tag thought for a cheap alternative to the gps and subscription. Certainly not fool proof but better than nothing. Thanks for the suggestion. I got 4 AirTags for Christmas. I put 1 in my trailer, one in my wallet, one in my truck and one on my new dog.
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I saw a dog tracker at PetSmart but haven’t bought it yet. I’m also going to check petsylife and look for more pet stores in my area to have a wider choice. Thanks for sharing your experiences, I’ll check the recommended collars.
I’ve got a Tractive, and while it’s not terrible, it does routinely report that the dog is way off the property when she’s right next to me very much on the property. It wanders like that even outside with good exposure to the southern sky, which makes me wonder a bit if it gets kind of lost handing off satellite to satellite.
It is inexpensive. And it does a pretty good job of keeping tabs on the dog when it’s not…wrong, lol.
But the way it wanders does make me wonder about the collars that have an integrated wireless electric fence component, and the chance of those delivering a shock when the dog is where it’s supposed to be :-/
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