The Sarah the Pet Sitter team always keeps an eye out for stray dogs and cats in need of care when we are on the street. Unfortunately, pets going astray is an everyday occurrence. According to the ASPCA more than 10 million pets are lost in America every year. Thankfully, there is often a happy ending thanks to different animal identification techniques.
Most SPS animal clients are microchipped, but for the chip to be effective, someone has to find your pet and bring them to have the chip scanned. A microchip is not equipped with GPS. If your pup or kitty is an escape artist, it may be a good idea to have them GPS tracked so that you can locate them in the event of a great escape. Just ask Caroline Paul, who wrote a whole book about tracking her wandering cat via GPS (among other more humorous techniques).
An average day’s travel for Caroline Paul’s cat, Tibia.
There are numerous products available on the market. A popular product in the US is Tagg the Pet Tracker. Tagg is a rechargeable GPS transmitter that attaches to your dog or cat’s regular collar. By paying a monthly service fee, Tagg will monitor the location of your pet at all times and has a smartphone app so that you can, too. Tagg can even track to see if your dog or cat is getting a proper amount of activity so that everyone can stay happy and healthy.
Whether you want to know your pet’s exact coordinates or not, SPS always recommends that pets at least wear ID tags and get microchipped whenever possible.
Don’t want to GPS your dog? There’s always this thrifty alternative.
