Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire Feedback on Fi dog tracking collar? Or something better?

After a year without a dog, we've got a new beagle puppy. We live on a farm well off the road in a very rural area, so she will be loose most of the time. She is supposed to be more of a pet than a hunter, but beagles are beagles... Over the years we've spent many nights sitting up waiting for our little hounds to finally tire out and come home, because sometimes they just do that.

We've talked about a tracking collar, and my wife found the Fi collars, which have a very small device on the collar and use cell and GPS service to track the dog. I've run bear hounds years ago and am familiar with the old radio collars and the newer GPS collars for the big hunting dogs, but I don't think I need something like that for our new pup.

Has anyone had any experience with the Fi collars, especially in rural areas with spotty cell service? Or is there something better you would recommend for a smaller pet dog? I know there are all sorts of dog owners here, so I thought this may be the best place to ask.

Thanks in advance for any suggestions you may offer!

I am looking into the halo dog collar for my dogs. I haven't bought one yet but I'm close to doing it. It puts a geo fence around the property and if the dog gets close to it the collar will vibrate. And if it goes closer it will get a static shock

Wood Troll,

The Fi are not great if you don't have good cell service. I experimented with one at our farm in highland county and it seldom had service enough to work, but out cell service sucks there.

Irving,

The halo's "static shock" is so minor that a dog with any prey drive at all doesn't pay much attention to it.

Co-worker had a beagle and the electric fence. Had the collar set to vibrate then shock. The dog would sit close enough for the vibrate to activate then wait until the battery died. Brilliant.

Thanks for the heads up with that, I am in the process of fencing in my 5 acres about half done.

Those were a terrible design. The problem you describe is true of any pet containment setup that had the warning set up as a function of distance instead of a function of time.

Systems that have a timed warning instead of a distance warning don't have the same issue.

I've got the Halo gen 2 and my father uses the gen 3 on his dogs. They're a VERY well engineered product. I've been absolutely impressed and that's speaking as someone who builds military grade hardware and software for a career. The Gen 3 is totally waterproof and has better GPS. The gen 2 has been succesful in keeping my Siberian Husky contained despite her best escape attempts (she's an expert...).

As with all of these type of collars though if you don't have decent cell service then they can't help too much. You can setup geo-boundaries before losing service though, and they will enforce the boundary as long as they have gps signal from the sky.

Thanks, everyone! My concern, as you noted, is the lack of cell service. The Fi claims it needs less cell signal than most, but I'm skeptical.

I'm not necessarily looking for a fence as much as a locator, in case her nose takes her out of her normal home territory, or in case she gets away from us on a camping trip. I've seen problems with the fences myself, but never heard of a dog timing the battery out! That sounds just like a conniving beagle - they are real escape artists!

I was helping a friend do some construction work one time, and the neighbor's dog was attracted to all the activity. He would make a run for the invisible fence, yelp as he came through, but then he was free! I guess he felt it was worth it - can't say I blame him.