Dog Camera to smart 'phone

[minerva]

I have just returned from trying to find my dog for the past hour to discover at home, waiting for me.... three miles from where I lost her!

Great news but she has had to cross some pretty main roads to get here. I live in Germany where, obviously, they will sue if they hit her.....

I would love to have a GPS thingy for her or even a camera that I could see on my smart 'phone... I promise that I have google searched, but not really found anything brilliant. Is there anything that anyone knows about (not necessarily for dogs) that could be used?!

Thank you!

[slinky]

http://www.trackmycat.com/

[FurtiveFreddy]

You won't find an affordable wireless camera small enough to put on a pet with enough of a range to be useful.

That leaves three main technologies used for tracking animals:

1. Your best bet is to look for a GPS/GSM based tracking device, which will allow you to see on your PC where your dog is.

That's as long as it's in a location where there's a phone signal and GPS coverage...

2. The RFID-based trackers are the cheapest and smallest but range is a limiting factor with those as well.

3. RF (radio) trackers which have a very long range but require you to manually triangulate the position using a receiver and directional antenna. Probably not practical to find where your pet has gone!

[Nimby]

We have a PawTrax and it works very well - but is dependent on a GPRS signal. We use a GiffGaff SIM (but not goodybags) and the data costs are negligible. Not sure what would suit you in Germany, or how good 2G/3G coverage is.

You can get the tracker itself (the yellow version of the MT90) cheaper on eBay, but PawTrax have been brilliant sorting out problems (and two replacements) so I can recommend them. We also bought the Android app for tracking; it's a bit clunky but better than getting Google Map texts.

[minerva]

They look brilliant, thank you! I think that I wasn't finding them before because I wasn't thinking laterally and looking for cat tracking devices.

[minerva]

Mmmmm... Damnit. Much more than I wanted to spend. Looks the best bet, though.

http://www.amazon.com/Garmin-Astro-Tracker-Sportin...

[FurtiveFreddy]

minerva said:

Mmmmm... Damnit. Much more than I wanted to spend. Looks the best bet, though.

http://www.amazon.com/Garmin-Astro-Tracker-Sportin...

I was in the U.S. recently and saw a lot of different types of this sort of tracker on sale. They all looked a bit on the bulky side, which is not a problem if you have a big dog I suppose.
The other thing is that they are designed with the hunter in mind, who use them to track their dogs during a hunting trip, so the battery life may be a problem if you are thinking of leaving it on your dog all the time.

As an aside, some of them also have an electric shock feature for 'training' which I made me wonder if I could disguise the collar as a necklace and give it to my girlfriend to wear...