Zoombak’s Advanced GPS Dog Locator
Probably the most popular GPS dog collar on the market today is the Zoombak Advanced A-GPS Dog Locator. What you want when you’re out in the wild is accuracy and dependability. Zoombak uses both satellite and cellphone technologies (thus the A for assisted) to give you a real precise location of your dog. I found the unit for the dog was very light but rugged, and if your dog is anything like mine, they don’t care what’s strapped to them when they hear game in the bush. So these things take a beating, and this appears to be made for the wide open.

GPS Dog Tracking
If you’re new to the technology, don’t worry. There is nothing too complicated about GPS dog tracking. It’s as easy as putting a lightweight collar or harness on your dog and then with a handheld receiver you find out where your dog is. Made for use in the USA where cell technology assists the unit, these trackers are excellent if you have any trouble getting Rover to stay near the gang. Think of the peace of mind you’ll have knowing that your dog is being tracked, and you know where they are. I review a handful of these units on the site here and give you my opinion.

Garmin Astro 220
This unit is one of my favorites, but it’s not cheap. When Garmin first entered the game, the early Astro was a mess. The Velcro designed to keep the antenna in place became full of dog hair and the antenna often snapped off as Rover raced through the underbrush. The Garmin Astro 220 is redesigned and better than before. Using VHF and GPS, you can track your dogs precisely. The only problems I encountered were with using the unit around another hunter having the same system. You just have to do a little frequency coordination.

RoamEO
The RoamEO GPS Pet Location System is a collar and the tracking handheld, but I wasn’t too excited about it. The most important gripe for me would be that the device that hangs on the dog isn’t waterproof. A few users complain the collar battery won’t hold a charge overnight. If you’re a hunter, I would recommend the Astro 220 by Garmin, but for the average dog, the RoamEO might be just what you need. Remember the limitations and you should be fine.

Each pet would require their own collar. One big downside to RoamEO is the cost. Some of its competitors are half as much as this system, at a little over four hundred dollars for a handheld unit and collar. The good thing about RoamEO is that both the handheld receiver and the collar are equipped with GPS receivers. This means that if you are on a hike, you don’t continuously have to re-create a virtual fence every step you take.

But tracking can bring challenges. By the time you reach the destination the pet will have moved on. This system only sends out updates every 3 minutes. Once your pet leaves this area, an audible alarm will sound to let you know there’s a problem. This electronic boundary is automatically stored, so it’s easy to wipe it out and replace it with a new area as you choose. They have received considerable input from cat owners asking for a product like RoamEO for their pets. As a result, they are actively investigating whether they can make a collar small enough to fit on cats. If your pet exits this perimeter, an audible alarm will sound. For example, you may wish to establish your property line as the perimeter for your pet.

The receiver picks up location information sent from the collar, including the speed of your dog, where he or she is, and how fast your pet is going. Apart from the $500 price tag (plus $160 for each additional GPS-enabled collar), the collar and receiver communicate with each other via radio, not GSM. There is no need for the collar to be off the dog for 4-6 hours while the batteries recharge, which would leave your dog unprotected during an escape without the collar. Your dog has protection 24/7/365. The signal from the collars can be detected up to 3 miles from the receiver. The RoamEO Pup’s high contrast display can be easily read in sunlight or at night.

It comes with a built-in battery that will last between 18 and 30 hours. Now each time you put on your dog’s collar, it comes with the extraordinary advantage of knowing that you can locate your pet at anytime. Just place your collar on the dog and you’re ready to track.

First, there are two parts two any GPS Dog Tracking system, the receiver and the transmitter. The transmitting part is actually the dog collar, and some of these for hunting even come with a harness and antenna. Naturally this is very light weight and are pretty comfortable so they won’t bother the dog.

Two systems are currently on the market, Zoombak’s A-GPS Dog Locator, and Garmin’s Astro GPS Dog Tracking System. They are slightly different and I’ll explain each one.

The Garmin system uses an electronic device that is attached to the dog that will receive GPS data and then transmit that data to a handheld receiver. The Garmin system can accommodate up to 10 dogs on a single handheld. The DC20 attaches to the dog’s collar and the screen updates every five seconds. You can track the dog as far away as five miles for up to 17 hours.

The Zoombak GPS Dog Tracking system incorporates cellphone technology in the collar unit as well so it can send the data to your cellphone using the SMS texting system. As it receives GPS data it can receive a signal from the Zoombak network and retransmit the location to a map tracking service Zoombak sells as well. The Zoombak system was designed more for pets. The Garmin for hunting dogs.

An interesting feature on the Zoombak system is that you can set up safety zones on the map system and if the dog wanders out of the zone, you receive a text message and/or an email. These alerts are very nice if you are far from where the dog was supposed to be. Once out of the zone, you can send SMS text messages to your Zoombak account and it will reply with the coordinates of the dog.

Another similar system is called Love My Pets GPS. Both Love My Pets GPS and Zoombak require a subscription in order to use the maps and online tracking. These typically run around $15 a month.