If you want to GPS your dog than this article series is a must read. In a minute, we will get to the Garmin offerings but first let me make an important point. The first article detailed the SpotLight GPS, which I believe to be the best all around and thoroughly capable GPS pet tracking system while the second article reviewed the PawTrack product, which is also a very worthy tracking device in its own right. Both of the manufacturers of those products are exclusively in the business of using the combination of GPS and cellular phone networks to track and recover lost pets or simply monitor their migrations. Bringing a product to the market for that exclusive reason and marshalling additional resources to create more layers of tracking coverage bodes well for both of those products. All their resources go into making the best GPS product for pets given the particular challenges of making a GPS device small, durable, and logistically feasible with which you can send your dog out into the world.
Garmin makes some of the best handheld portable navigational GPS units in the world which means they do not rely exclusively on how well their Garmin Astro device for dogs functions or how it performs. It is by far not their best seller in contrast to the previously mentioned pet tracking units. I feel their device falls short in meeting the special challenges a GPS dog collar poses that the other two innovative models discussed above does meet. Primarily meaning the Astro has traditionally been too big, bulky, and straight out of a Jetson’s cartoon. However, improvements have greatly added to the value of this unit, as you will see below, and for certain activities (say you have bird dogs for instance), it is your best choice.
