GPS collars for domestic dogs

Stephanie M.

@smitch88

I'm a PhD student at UW working with the Smithsonian and Center for One Health Research. I develop models to predict and explain zoonotic disease patterns, with a strong emphasis on how these diseases impact wildlife populations and communities sharing the same landscape.

Groups

Hi Everyone - I'm quantifying home ranges and contact rates between wildlife, pastoralists, and domestic animals (livestock guardian dogs and livestock) living on shared landscapes in Kenya as a small part of my PhD thesis. I'm planning to collar livestock and domestic dogs to collect movement data and then overlay that data with previously collected wildlife movement data. My advisor has enough GPS collars for me to use on both livestock and domestic dogs, but we are a little concerned about the weight of the GPS trackers as we think they may be too heavy for the domestic dogs.

Could anyone with experience collaring small-medium size mammals - about the size of a domestic dog (around 27 kg) - share your feedback on what brand GPS collars you use including the pros/cons of each, including cost? If I need to purchase a few collars to collect domestic dog movement data, what brands do you suggest? I'm looking for collars that transmit the data directly to a server to try to avoid having to download data between fixes since these will be used in different locations over short time periods.

Thank you!

Ahmed Junaid

@ahmedjunaid | He/His

Zoologist, Ecologist, Herpetologist, Conservation Biologist

20 January 2025 6:40am

👍

Craig Rackstraw

@craig

Director of Icoteq Ltd, an electronics and software design consultancy developing wireless products and solutions to organisations working in the conservation, wildlife monitoring and anti-poaching sectors. Developers of the TagRanger® novel wildlife tracking products.

24 January 2025 1:11pm

Hi Stephanie,

Our TagRanger Tags weigh 38g, is this light enough for your application? We can also do lighter ones which are around 21g with a smaller battery.

Our TagRanger system is based around LoraWAN and allows you to set up an ad hoc Tag network with a lot of features for tracking and finding Tags. Your Tags will talk to a gateway device which can either be a handheld unit you carry with you, or you can set up a traditional LoraWAN network to provide your coverage.

We also have a capability to put 'relay' devices on a drone, mast or other high point to massively increase range or to mitigate issues with hilly landscapes or forests blocking coverage.

Please let me know if you'd like any further information! https:\\www.tagranger.com

TagRanger

TagRanger Relay

Patrick Chwalek

@pchwalek | He/him/his

I'm a PhD candidate in the Responsive Environments Group, working on electronic systems for human and wildlife monitoring.

25 January 2025 4:49am

Hi @smitch88!

I've been working on tackling this issue in collaboration with @Kasim21 (Kasim Rafiq) who is over in your neck of the woods! Its tough since a lot of the commercial collars are rather large. There are some small ones that don't transmit data but what @craig mentioned above sounds pretty good and inline with what you're looking for!

I've been working on designing a new collar during my PhD with a variety of environmental sensors and GPS for wild dogs. We're getting prototypes out in April for initial testing but would be happy to chat more if timelines align since we could also pilot them with you later this year. We also use LoRa and record acoustics, acceleration, and a few other things. Since our target is wild dogs for one year deployments, we've been spending a lot of time on enclosure design and power optimization but our system is pretty configurable.

Best!
Patrick

Tim van Dam

@Tim_van_Dam

Smart Parks

Founder of Smart Parks - www.smartparks.org / Founder of OpenCollar - https://opencollar.io

1 February 2025 6:25pm