Ok…Bear’s new “clothes” :)!

It is 8 1/2 weeks since Bear returned safely from his 2 1/2 day walkabout. I still have no idea what happened the morning of December 26…the morning that lead to his being gone/lost/stuck – away from home for 55 1/2 hours, 2 1/2 days.

And as noted, we did get right back on the horse – the off-leash horse. But, still…it was hard and scary. We immediately walked the state land. I wanted to make sure that Bear was familiar with it in case he got that far again. And I wanted to see how he dealt with being off the property. As before the walkabout, he stayed near me on his own and followed any directional commands happily, i.e. it did not appear that he’d had such a good time that he thought life on his own was a good thing. And neither did he seem concerned being out from the property. All of his behavior seemed and has continued to seem as it was.

The TAGG collar, shown in the first post– it needs a bit more progress in technology to be truly what I’d hoped it might be. Currently, it probably works best in a suburban setting as it depends on a “house address” for location information. BUT, it does have its functionality as far as letting me know if Bear has left the home zone. (A full review here: TAGG Full Review). It is on Bear’s regular collar 24/7.

As much as I knew it was probably an over-reaction…

I bought a “search and rescue lighted coat” – from the same place I bought Bear’s lighted collar. Bear wears this when we are out in the dark. The lights along the edges are easier to see from more angles than the collar. It is mesh with reflective stripes and makes him much more visible at a distance.

For daytime when it is not hunting season…

a bandana.

And then…

a REAL GPS collar and receiver that go on when we are outside or on an off leash walk.

The Garmin Astro was designed for hunters working with one or up to 10 dogs.

The collar and a hand held unit both acquire satellite fixes used to calculate latitude-longitude (lat-lon) of both Bear and the hand held unit. The hand held unit then displays Bear’s position relative to the hand held.

…via a map interface….

The triangle is “me”. The dotted lines are Bear’s “track”…i.e. a “bread crumb” trail.

This unit will maintain the tracks of up to 10 dogs. It will maintain the location of home/truck. It allows me to follow Bear’s track and/or track back to the home location. It does a lot more, but for my current purposes, it allows me to know at a glance where Bear is relative to where I am which = PEACE OF MIND FOR ME!

The compass interface. This is actually the screen I look at most. It shows instantly, Bear’s distance and direction from me – usually from me on the front porch or in the driveway. It means that I can be doing outside chores and see where Bear is.

Both screens show that Bear has “treed a quarry”…and he had :) !!

There was a squirrel…

The icon changes from “treed a quarry” to running to sitting to walking.

Between the TAGG and the Garmin and the orange bandana/vest/coat…Bear can be a beardog and I can know that he is on the property without hovering over him. Freedom for both of us = win-win!