I spent a week in Norfolk with my family, including our dog, Chase. With the weather forecast looking ok, we had ambitions to go for long country walks, and as it was quiet, Chase would be off the lead to roam the fields and woods. When Tractive got in touch, I thought what a perfect opportunity to give their tracking device a go and see how helpful it may or may not be.
Tractive have developed GPS tracking devices that attach to the collar of your dog or cat, and provide a number of monitoring features, with the main being live tracking of your pet.
For dogs, three models are available, and you select the one you need based on your dog’s weight. Chase is a small to mid-size size weighing 8.5kg, so he needed the Dog 6 model, which is the smallest in the range and suitable for dogs between 4 and 25kg. For dogs over 25kg, you need the Dog XL model, and there is also an adventure model too, with an extra strong case if you feel that’s needed. The price of the Dog 6 and XL are the same at £59 each, while the Adventure model costs £89. The Dog 6 comes in three different colours, black, brown and mint, while the other two come in just one colour.
In terms of features, it includes GPS live tracking, with worldwide coverage, so you can see where your dog is via the app on your phone, in real time. You can set escape alerts, you can create a virtual fence around an area, and if your dog passes this, you receive an alert. The tracker also learns about your dog, it can provide health alerts, activity monitoring and monitor heart and respiratory rate. You can also monitor barking to see if they’re barking more or less than normal, an indicator of anxiety. Battery life up to 2 weeks with the Dog 6, more with the other two models.
The tracker itself is relatively small and lightweight, although it may stand out somewhat on a smaller dog with a smaller collar. For Chase, his size and long hair, you don’t really notice it. The tracker has indicator lights on, which relate to status and battery level, all of which are detailed in the instructions, plus a USB C port for charging and a button. The tracker clips onto your dog’s collar via a web-like rubber strap. You place the tracker on the collar and wrap the rubber strap around the back, and clip it in. The tracker is waterproof to IP68, but remember the USB port is covered by a rubber flap, which needs to be secured to keep the device waterproof. Chase doesn’t like water, so shant be going in any lakes but if your dog did, I’d be cautious and maybe take this off, just in case.
The app is the brain of the operation and allows you to access the tracker, view stats, alerts and so on. On the homepage, you can get a live view of your pet’s location. You can start a walk, where your walk is recorded, and if you’re competitive, you can join leaderboards and compete against locals or people worldwide, based on minutes walked. You can see the battery level of the tracker, view past walks and view health stats. These include activity points, where Chase has a goal of hitting 140minutes of activity per day. Sleep, where you can see how long your pet has slept, either a night sleep, a day sleep or them just being calm. You can see when they slept, what time of day or not, as well as how many times they were interrupted, i.e. when I move around the bed and end up waking him up. Also under health, you can review heart rate, respiratory rate and barking, but the tracker needs at least 7 days of taking data to provide any feedback.
Also, via the app, you can edit or update your profile, add family members, collect badges, add those virtual fences I mentioned before and add any photos of your pet if you want to.
After a week of using the tracker, the app is fully set up and tracking every aspect. Live tracking works relatively well, although I have seen a slight delay at times, and unfortunately, if you’re out and your phone doesn’t have a great signal, it sometimes doesn’t work but that’s at no fault of Tractive; more on the suppliers of phone services. Walks record well; you can see quite clearly the routes you have taken, with snapshots over the duration of the walk. The walk also tracks your dog’s activity and estimates their calories burned. I didn’t necessarily always remember to hit walk before going out, and would have liked the app to notice we’d started walking and automatically start recording the walk.
The live fence works well, but we rarely use this feature. While at home, you’ve probably got a fenced garden like us, so while I set it up to alert us when Chase escaped and went into the main road, we have already made sure the garden is safe and aim for him to never go into the road. If you had a large plot of land, or were in a specific nature reserve, for example, you could let your dog roam, and if they went too far, you’d get an alert.
Activity is tracked, not just from recorded walks but also your dog’s movements all day. You can go through previous days and see how much they’ve walked in total, check calories burnt and averages. If you’re hitting those targets too easily, you can increase the goals to make it a little more challenging.
Sleep, you can see how much your dog has slept during the day, split between night sleep, day sleep and also calm periods or rest. You can monitor averages, see if your dog has had a better or worse sleep than usual. You can see exactly when they are asleep during the day or night, and see how often they are interrupted, if any.
As mentioned previously, after 7 days the app will have learnt enough about your dog’s heart rate, respiratory rate and barking habits. Heart rate, you can review daily and previous days to see any fluctuations. For Chase, he had a very average heart rate for the duration of testing, which was good. Resting respiratory rate was again average and didn’t change too much over a week. Similar to barking, it was noted as normal, but I can see differences over the previous days, with a Monday being higher than a Wednesday, so something must have been happening on Monday, perhaps lots of deliveries, as Chase always barks when someone pulls up the drive.
Battery level is ok, although during the first week, we had to charge it twice. However, you can put it into power-saving mode if you want to. This is when the tracker jumps on your home network, saves power and the need to connect to the GPS. There is a low power mode too, which will help lengthen battery life but comes with some limitations and inaccuracies.
To use the device, you will need a subscription. There are two options available: basic and premium. The fundamentals remain available on both the tracking, the monitoring but with the premium sub, you get family sharing, worldwide coverage, 365 location history and the ability to export data. The prices, a year of basic is £84 or £7 per month, two years at £108 or £4.50 per month, billed every year or two years, so they want you to lock in for a long time and provide a decent saving for doing so. Premium, one year is £96 or £8 per month, 2 years at £120 or £5 per month, 5 years at £240 or £4 per month. So if you’re prepared to drop £300, you can get the Dog 6 device and 5 years of premium sub, for the equivalent of £4 per month, which to me, doesn’t sound too bad at all,
I think that covers most points, although we are still using it and will update this post if needed. I think overall, it’s a good bit of tech, especially if you have a breed of dog that likes to explore, or is prone to running away, or if you have a cat, they can be out all day sometimes. I sometimes wonder where our cat is, whether she’s exploring the fields or she’s just cuddling up in the neighbour’s home, two doors down.
It’s robust, durable. Chase was not put off by having it on his collar at all. The app works well, the live tracking and recording work well, although it oes rely on your phone signal if you’re checking while out and about. The stats help and are insightful. When we come back from a long walk, we know Chase is tired and having these stats really shows how much more he has to work than us. Touch wood, he hasn’t had any problems while testing, but if anything did happen, a change is heart rate or more barking, this might help us identify any problems sooner. The subscription is what it is, but if you use this daily, I think it’s really good value.
For more info, head over to the official Tractive website.
