Losing your dog on a walk is an incredibly nerve-wracking experience. If you’ve ever spent time calling and whistling, seemingly in vain, investing in one of the best GPS trackers for dogs could put your mind at rest and allow you to enjoy your walks together in the same way that the best pet cameras will give you peace of mind when your dog’s at home alone.
The obvious solution is recall training and to ensure you do not let your dog off the lead unless you are certain he will come back, but dogs will be dogs. Some are harder to train than others, some retain a very strong hunting instinct despite your best efforts, and sometimes they just attach themselves to another walking party, or dash off in the wrong direction when they are simply trying to find you. And of course, there’s always the visitor who leaves the door open and the worry of how to prevent dog theft… So, even with a well-trained dog, one of the best GPS trackers is a sensible addition to your doggy accessories.
How to choose the best GPS tracker for your pet
There is a range of options and price levels. Location update times vary. Most trackers notify you if your dog leaves a designated area and some give you a full timeline on where your dog has been. With some GPS trackers, you can even combine keeping tabs on your dog’s whereabouts with monitoring his fitness.
Bear in mind your dog’s size as some of the best GPS trackers will be too heavy or large to fit on your pet’s collar if he’s on the smaller side. You’ll also want to consider what tech the GPS uses because Bluetooth trackers tend to offer a smaller range, while people living in remote areas might need the more expensive models that work off a range of wireless technologies. Most GPS trackers require a subscription, so this needs incorporating into your pet’s budget.
Best GPS trackers for dogs
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Tractive GPS Dog Tracker
Subscription: From £4.50 per month
Suitable for: For dogs over 4kg
Weight: 35g
Colours: Snow, midnight blue or coffee
Battery life: 2–7 days (normal use)
This 100% waterproof tracker uses live GPS tracking updating every two to three seconds, with unlimited range worldwide. You can also see a location history of all the places your dog has visited. And you can set “virtual fences” – safe zones –with alerts if your dog wanders too far.
You can also monitor your dog’s activity and sleep, set fitness goals and track wellness. Free app for Android, iPhone and web.
The product’s tagline is “trusted by over 1 million pet parents”.
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PitPat Dog GPS Tracker
Subscription: None
Suitable for: All dogs
Weight: 30g
Colours: Red/black
Battery life: Unspecified
Find your dog if they go missing with cutting-edge GPS technology and track their exercise, rest and play with this award-winning activity monitor. It is designed to be robust, coping with running, swimming, scratching and rolling. It has been waterproof tested by half and hours’ submersion in metre-deep water.
Our Art Editor Sophie Cheeseman tested the PitPat with her two very sprightly whippets, Frank and Bluebell. She was super impressed with how easy the device was to set up and use. “The instructions are clear, it’s simple to link the device to an app on your phone and it notifies you when the battery needs charging soon. The battery lasts about two to three weeks.”
The parachute-grade Velcro strap held fast on the dogs’ collars and withstood their playing, rolling and swimming. “The straps are strong and didn’t come loose,” said Sophie. “It fits neatly onto the collar – my dogs wear tapered collars and it sits snugly on the narrower end.”
It has unlimited range – you can even be in a different part of the country and find out where your dog is. The GPS tracker uses two providers to give superior coverage if one network is having signal issues. “The app features a summary of your dog’s activity, including how long they walk, run and play,” Sophie remarked. “It also has a ‘locate my dog’ feature that only works if the dog is outside. It takes a few minutes to locate the satellite and track the dog, which feels like ages when they’re AWOL. However, it’s super accurate and follows the dog on map, showing you exactly where they are.
“I have had to use this function a few times and have been able to locate my dog every time.”
A big USP with this product is the lack of subscription fees. “There are other tabs for PitPat insurance and PitPat Life subscription giving you access to veterinary advice, but if you just want the tracker for locating your dog on walks, the app is free.
“Overall, I have been really happy with the device and it’s given me huge peace of mind. It is quite expensive, especially if you want to pay for the other functionalities, but you can’t put a price on your dog’s safety and I would happily pay it for that reason.”
The Pawfit 3 includes an embedded SIM to support full roaming in Europe, with no concerns about SIM compatibility. Track your furry friend without time or distance limits, with accurate location updates every five seconds. Plus light and sound tracking to help you find your dog more easily.
It features remote voice commands, so you can speak to your pet when they are out of earshot by triggering the recorded voice commands on the Pawfit App, which play out of the tracker’s speaker.
This waterproof tracker includes protection features, enabling people to contact you if your pet is lost, and sending you notifications when your pet leaves its safety zone, or when the temperature gets too hot or cold.
This is also a fitness tracker, so you can monitor your dog’s steps, calories burned, active and rest hours, and set customised activity.
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Weenect Dog GPS Tracker
Subscription: From £3.75 per month
Weight: 25g
Colour: White
Battery life: Three days (normal use)
Weenect offers the “world’s smallest GPS for dogs”. There is no distance limit on this tracker (with SIM card provided), so you can track your dog from your phone in any part of Europe (outside Switzerland) with a good network connection (GPRS/2G), providing “99% coverage of the territory”. The tracker updates its position every 10 seconds. You can view on different modes – classic, satellite, compass or radar.
It has an anti-escape alert, so you are notified when your dog enters or leaves its safe zone. And you can track your dog’s activities in the location history, to gain a better understanding of their needs.
For those with multiple pets, you can locate all your animals equipped with a tracker from the same account.
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Safer Pet GPS Pet Tracker
Subscription: From £3.33 per month
Weight: 22g
Colour: Orange
Battery life: Up to three days (normal use)
One of the cheapest on the market, Safer Pet say this product is the “UK’s best value pet tracker”. The GPS/WiFi tracker allows you to keep tabs on your dog in real time with an accuracy of up to 10 metres. Tracking interval can be set from 1–60min. It is compact and lightweight, too.
This one also has a beep that you can activate to find your dog and use it for recall training. You can also track your dog’s fitness and view previous walks for up to three months.
It is splashproof and a silicone protective case is provided.
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TrackiPet 4G Dog Tracker
RRP: £17.95
Subscription: From £8.95 a month
Weight: 30g
Suitable for: All dogs
Battery life: Up to five days
This tracker is cheap to buy but has a pricier subscription – although there are lots of options and you can get the price down by committing for longer.
Water- and dust-resistant, the tracker can be used across the world with GPS, WiFi, and GSM technology, which sends your dog’s live, location to the TrackiPet App, where you can view current and past activity from anywhere, anytime.
It says the battery life is up to six days, which is longer than competitors – but TrackiPet doesn’t specify what type of use this is with.
This small, durable and rainproof device is a GPS tracker allowing you to track your pet’s activity and pinpoint his location in real time. It combines GPS, WiFi, bluetooth and long-distance wireless technologies. It updates every 10 seconds in bluetooth mode. The tracking ranges up to 0.65 miles in built-up areas and 3.5 miles in open spaces.
It has a unique Radar searching feature to help you find the direction of lost dogs. There are four modes to set up your pet’s location, and you are notified if it leaves that area.
You can activate colourful LED lights to track your pet more easily in the dark, and voice commands can be stored on the tracker to communicate with your dog remotely.
It is not suitable for dogs who love to swim, as although it works in wet weather it should not be submerged.
Released in 2021, Apple Airtags are small, discrete disk-shaped devices that can be used to help locate frequently misplaced items such as keys or wallets.
They are battery operated and the battery lasts around a year before you need to replace it. Many collar manufacturers have started making products with compartments you can slot an Airtag securely into.
However, Airtags do not use GPS. They work by sending Bluetooth signal every three to five minutes that, when in Lost mode, connects to any up-to-date iPhone or iPad within a 30m range that is connected to Apple’s Find My network. The Airtag’s location then gets send to the Cloud, which means it can be displayed in the Find My app.
The Airtag relies on being in close range of an updated iPhone or iPad in order to trigger its location on the Find My network. As a result, you would’t be able to locate your dog if he ran off in an unpopulated area with no enabled devices in range.
Airtags are not waterproof, only water resistant, so if your pup likes to make a splash you could run into trouble. In fact, Apple itself does not recommend using Airtags to track pets.
To sum up, it’s down to the choice of the owner to use an Airtag as a tracking device for pets. That said, its range, lack of GPS and non-waterproofness might not make it the best choice for you.
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Martha is an experienced journalist who is mad-keen on horses and dogs. Her reporting CV includes the Paris Olympics, European championships, Aachen World Equestrian Festival and World Cup finals. After growing up with assorted liver and white springer spaniels, she enjoyed 14 years with two rescue dogs. Now, her constant companion is Fidget, an extremely energetic and habitually muddy black and white springer. Martha has written on topics as diverse as a top horse’s clone to the best GPS trackers for dogs, as well as equestrian and rural matters for Country Life, The Field, The Times, The Spectator and The Telegraph alongside Horse & Hound.
