Can you recommend a cat tracker?

[StuntNun]

My cat is very friendly and has been caught twice climbing into other people's cars! I'm worried that he will succeed one day and get himself lost. I'm considering getting a cat tracker for his collar for my peace of mind. Has anyone tried one they can recommend? A lot of them seem quite bulky and I don't want to sign up for a year's subscription if he's going to pull his collar off and lose it.

Bumping because I’m very interested but I too think they are too bulky and would be bothersome.

Can recommend Pawtrax, bought one a few years ago now as was having to move house w kitty several times in a short period of time.

Absolutely invaluable, without it i’d never have found my boy again after he decided one day to find the only tree lined park in the area - a mile away!

The unit on the collar was a bit bulky back then but has since been much improved. Customer service was very good too.

Plus great fun effectively texting your Cat whenever you want to find out where the little blighters are :)

I would be forever texting to find out where she was! what if there is a terrible signal? I would panic if I didn’t get a text.
I think I would have to go gps tracker tbh but will keep it in mind.

I have a tabcat.

They are smaller than GPS and the battery lasts for months. But you find the cat (or the tag when they have lost their collar!) by walking around with the hand held tracker which lights up and beeps as you get closer/ point it in right direction.

It’s not perfect - if the cat gets in a car or goes far away you wouldn’t find it. But if you know where they hang out roughly, you can find them if they are stuck up a tree or in a garage or shed (although maybe not a shed if there are lots of long gardens).

It gives me peace of mind. They generally come running when their collar beeps anyway.

I was just coming here to post this! Thought my puss has gone missing but I’d accidentally licked him in the garage overnight 😬. Kept dreaming about him all night the worry was unbearable.

Is the law track collar ‘safe’ Bibi? Mine doesn’t wear one at all at the moment as I thought collars could be unsafe for cats.

is the pawtrax collar

Same Q re collar and the Tabcat!

The tabcat tag you just put on a normal collar - an easy release one. I understand that even with easy release collars there are risks, but I consider the risk of them getting stuck somewhere to be higher. Because they are a bit thick as cats go. And the collar has a bell which has no doubt saved many bird and mouse lives.

In more than 6 months the two cats have lost a collar 3 times between them. In neighbour gardens. I’ve always been able to find it, using the tracker, but one I wasn’t able to get back (I could see it over the fence) as the people never responded to a note through the door - cost £25 to replace just the tag.

We have a tractive, and have put it on for a few "test runs" to see where the cats go distance wise - very surprising. However they are forever popping their collars and I couldn't make them wear it all the time because I'd never see it again. I have more idea of where they go if they went missing, but I could have got one on ebay and paid for a month tbh.

Good call on eBay FinnRogers there are loads on there. I've settled on a collar with my phone number on for now as I'm more concerned about him jumping in a car or van and getting taken out of the area entirely.

All I can say is don't get the 'Pawtrack' one. I had dreadful problems with it, they sent me replacements which still didn't work and after emails back and forth I eventually got my money back. After reading reviews (which I should've done before I bought it!) it seems most people have problems with it.
I've yet to find a decent one.

Actually I did wonder about a key ring tracker, would that work on a cat's collar? I might have to investigate.......

Both of mine have tractive trackers on their collars - boy cat went through a phase of losing it every few days over the summer but was always in a neighbours garden so was retrieved!

I have the older Tractive collar (it's an entire collar) which works OK. They all have flaws though. GPS is great until they get underneath something or inside someone else's house. Non GPS are OK if your cat doesn't roam far...

See this is the most ridiculous thing about all the ‘injecting you with microchip trackers’ vaccine conspiracy theories.

If there WAS such a chip, that didn’t need batteries, and meant you could track someone wherever they went in the world, whoever invented it would make a fortune selling it to cat owners!

DCat has a Weenect one with gps. You have to pay a monthly subscription but I am happy to pay it as after she went missing for a few days and on another occasion got hit by a car and if we’d found her sooner she might have needed fewer operations.

It fits onto her normal collar and although it looks quite bulky she doesn’t have any issues with it. Was very useful recently when she got shut in next door neighbours garage and we could prove she was there by setting it to make a noise

@JemimaJellyfish

All I can say is don't get the 'Pawtrack' one. I had dreadful problems with it, they sent me replacements which still didn't work and after emails back and forth I eventually got my money back. After reading reviews (which I should've done before I bought it!) it seems most people have problems with it. I've yet to find a decent one.

Oh no! I literally just bought one of these

Oh dear, well hopefully you will be lucky violet.
I got one after seeing Rolf the Warwick university cat had one on Twitter and it seemed to work for tracking him, so fingers crossed for you.

Me too violetbunny 😬

Well I set up the Pawtrack as it was still in the box. It worked perfectly for a couple of hours, then when the cat came back in the outer plate which covers all the electronic components had come off and was missing. So I've had to email them to see if they can replace it.

Oh no. Well at least it was working to start with, so hopefully you can get a replacement outer bit.

Good luck with yours too, when you get it yoffel.

@violetbunny and @Yoffel how are you getting on with the Pawtrack collars? My cat has started only coming home once a day for food and then disappearing again so I'm going to get a tracker to find out where he is sleeping now. I don't know whether someone else has adopted him or whether he's just brazenly breaking into someone's house. I sometimes find my neighbour's cat sleeping on my sofa at night! My cat is due for his annual vaccinations but I can't book him in to the vet because I never know when he'll be home.

@StuntNun It's been a bit of a saga to be honest! Managed to get a replacement outer casing as it had come off, then finally got to use it properly and realised the battery charger wasn't working properly. They were going t send me a new one but this was right before Xmas so it hasn't arrived yet (I'm in NZ so shipping takes an age). In the meantime I'm just using Tile Stickers attached to their collars as a temporary measure which is actually working.

Sorry to hear about your cat, I would wonder the same! Could you somehow attach a note to his collar? Also if you have a cat flap then I would just lock it when it comes in the day before and keep him in overnight for his appointment.