Mallee Machinery Field Days: GPS trackers for working dogs

THERE’S something for dog owners at the field days with DogMaster Trainers showing off training, tracking, barking and containment devices for hunting and working dogs.

Follow the trail: The Astro 430 Tracker GPS device can pinpoint your dog.

THERE’S something for dog owners at the field days with DogMaster Trainers showing off training, tracking, barking and containment devices for hunting and working dogs.

The Astro 430 Tracker is primarily for hunting dogs that uses GPS, a satellite tracking system, to pinpoint the animal and map out its distance from the hunter.

“Pig dogs will go find where wild pigs are and the hunters will be able to track where their dogs have gone, and the hunters will locate them via the tracker,” said DogMaster managing director Paul Asselman.

“The collars are constantly transmitting the position of where the dogs are. The collar picks up the signal and sends that back to a dedicated handheld, which has mapping software on it,” Mr Asselman said.

“The handheld knows where your position is and the collar is telling you where the dog’s position is and then those two positions are plotted on your map.”

Mr Asselman said cattle farmers are also putting the Astro 430 on the quad bikes to track them during cattle muster in larger paddocks.

The Astro 430 retails for $1049

Also displayed at DogMaster’s site will be the Garmin Sport Pro Trainer, which is used with working dogs for stock, sheep and cattle.

The device has adjustable levels of stimulus to attract a dog’s attention from a vibration to a static shock.

“A farmer will call out a command to a dog that’s 700m away and that dog may not be listening to the command,” Mr Asselman said.

“Or the farmer just needs to have that dog’s attention so you can either give an electrical stimulus to the dog if he’s not heeding the command or if you just want to get the dog’s attention you might just vibrate the collar, or give a warning beep.”

The Garmin Sport Pro Trainer retails for $499.