Tractive Smart Dog GPS Tracker | Live Pet Tracker with Virtual Fence | Vital Signs Monitoring of Heart & Respiratory Rate | Bark Monitoring | Dog Collar Attachment (Black)

Why it's worth it

Tractive refreshes your dog's location every two to three seconds and adds something no other pick offers: heart and respiratory rate trends. It clips onto the collar you already own, weighs just over an ounce, and works on cellular networks across most of the world.

If you travel with your dog, this is the easy call. Tractive says it runs on more than 175 cellular networks in over 190 countries, the broadest roaming footprint of anything here. A tracker that goes dark at a border isn't much of a safety net. Take it to a rental cabin two states over or to family abroad, and it keeps reporting without you buying a second device.

The update rate is the fastest of any pick. CNET's field work clocked live updates every two to three seconds with median accuracy around 8 meters in open terrain. In practice, that means the dot on your map moves the way your dog moves instead of jumping in stale hops. When you're following a dog through a treeline, smooth matters more than precise.

From our review of 7 pet gps trackers and smart collars, by James Bennett, Associate Editor

What we like

• +If you travel with your dog, this is the easy call
• +The update rate is the fastest of any pick
• +The vitals monitoring is genuinely different
• +It's also the lightest way here to get true cellular GPS, and it rides on a collar you already like rather than replacing it

What to know

• –Notification delays are the recurring owner complaint
• –The clip-on design also means one more thing to lose