We often get asked about our GPS tracking service, so here’s a quick overview of what it is and how it works.

GPS stands for Global Positioning System, which uses small devices on the ground (in our case a smart-phone with special software) together with a group of satellites in geo-stationary orbit to accurately plot the position of the ground device anywhere on the face of the earth. Each satellite carries an extremely accurate clock, all of which are synchronized  with one another. They send these time signals down to the ground device, but because the satellaites are each a different distance away, the synchronized signals take slightly less time to arrive from those that are closest. The tracker device works out these tiny time differences and can then triangulate it’s position to within a few metres. The technology was originally invented by the US military, but was given over to the general public and is the thing used to make car sat-navs work.

Your dog’s walker will have one of our special tracker phones which is also connected to the mobile internet. Using our ‘Doggy Logs’ software they can send you messages and photos from any given point on the walk. They can also log the places your pet had a pee or a poo so you can see of there’s anything out of their normal pattern. At the end of the walk our walker will send you an e-mail, which includes a map of where they took your dog and anything interesting or out of the ordinary that happened during the walk.

The map above shows a test walk Andy did with his own dog Pippa. The green arrow shows where the walk started and the direction of the paw-prints shows which way they went. The red camera icons show where a photo was taken that would be sent to the owner and the yellow icons show where Pippa had a pee. There is also a log of the distance walked and the time started and time finished. All of this is overlaid onto a Google map and sent to the owner and also any other e-mail addresses the owner specifies. This multi-e-mail is something many other dog walking services don’t offer, but it’s a big help to families who all want to keep track of their four legged friends.