How I find our cat

[andrewducker]

This is Jim, sitting in the bag Loki's clothes came in from Mothercare, wearing his Locator.



Jim was an indoor cat until he moved here with Jane. He'd lived indoors the whole time, and understandably Jane was worried that the moment we let him out he'd be off into the distance as fast as his feet would carry him. (Or, more accurately, would take fright at another cat/dog/human and then get lost.)

So along with the vaccinations, and taking him out on the lead a few times to get him used to the lack of ceiling, we went looking for tracking devices so that we could find him should he be wandering the streets begging for Dreamies.

There are multiple kinds of location devices for cats.

You get ones which use GPS and then get downloaded to your computer when the cat returns. Which is fascinating if you want to know where they hang out, but no use if they don't come back.

You get ones with use GPS and then upload the data while your cat is out and about, but then you're having to pay for the SIM card, and I'd rather not be paying for a phone contract for the cat.

Also, both of these are pretty weighty. The Pod 3 is 31 grams and 52mmx25mm. That's quite a large thing to attach to a cat's neck.

And let's face it, I don't _really_ care about seeing maps of the cat, they're just nice to have.

Enter the TabCat. It's basically a Loc8tor, designed to track small objects, but with a waterproof cover designed to be attached to a cat collar. It's only 32mm across, and weighs 6 grams. And although Jim didn't like wearing a collar at first, after a couple of days he doesn't seem to notice it any more.

It doesn't use GPS. In fact it doesn't tell me Jim's location at all. But what it does do is tell me whether I'm pointing the location handset in his direction, and whether I'm getting closer or not. So I can wander into the garden, wave it left and right until it makes a higher pitched noise/goes green, and then walk in that direction until I find whichever bush he's hiding under. Which is enough to give me reassurance I can find him if he goes missing (it has a range of 120m), and that's all we really needed.

Comments

[calimac]

I bought a button locator of that kind several years ago. It worked fine for a few months, but then the battery wore out, long before it was supposed to need replacement. But it had gotten so corroded and encrusted inside the case (and this is without ever having gone out in the rain) that I couldn't open it up and had to replace it. After the same thing happened after another few months, I gave up on it.

If this works better than that, I may hope the technology has improved and give a new one a try.

[andrewducker]

I'll let you know in a couple of months!

[calimac]

I think it was rather longer than that. How often does it say the battery in the cat's tag should be replaced?

[andrewducker]

Seven months.

[skington]

I think that's probably a reasonable trade-off to make for a cat: weight and encumbrance are important factors. But when we take Ella (a 40kg long-coat Akita) to France, I want something with GPS which will phone home if she leaves the geo-fenced area, because on the couple of times that she's got away she's gone considerably more than 120 metres away.

We went for the Tractive and it worked well for the couple of months that we were there. Crucially, you can tell them “I don't want to use this any more” and they'll suspend billing you until you tell them “OK, I want to use this again”, which is useful if you only need it when away from home.

[andrewducker]

Yeah, for a dog I'd happily go for something larger.

[errolwi]

Green light! Audio warning?
They're in the ROOM!

[andrewducker]

Hah!

I tend to feel more Ghostbusters than Aliens.

[agoodwinsmith]

Jim's a cutie. :)

Is his collar loose enough to pull off if he gets it hung up on something?

We're not letting Chucko have his complete freedom since we moved to the mobile home park. One - it is supposed to be not permitted, but that doesn't phase many people. But two - the week we moved in there was a sign up warning people that a bear had been seen in the area. There are also coyotes and raccoons and eagles, all who find cats succulent. Chucko is sixteen and not so speedy or cunning as he was as a two-year old on the prairie in a small town.

[andrewducker]

Yeah, Jim's wary enough of the seagulls, a bear is a bit much.

The collar is a quick release one. I can pull it open with two fingers if I try.

[agoodwinsmith]

Excellent. Cats can get spooked into places they wouldn't normally go.

Now, if you see a cat-sized hamster ball, let me know. We'd really like to let Chucko have more freedom - and he'd really like to have it - but we're too chicken.

[gominokouhai]

120m doesn't seem like much. Do they really not stray any farther than that?

[andrewducker]

That covers all of the shared garden in the middle of the block (ie there are four streets and the gardens on the back of them are part of one huge green).

Jim could theoretically get out of there and into the road through a bit of fence at one end, but a quick five minute walking sweep of the area would pick him up unless he was behaving very oddly.

If he starts roaming a much larger area then it's time for a rethink, I agree.

[birguslatro]

As a way to find him by wandering around your neighbourhood, it's probably good enough. But as you'll notice, I went through a different cat-flap... :)

[birguslatro]

I think it depends on the cat, and I'd guess 1000m wouldn't be uncommon. 120m would be in calling distance, I'd think.

[goes looking]

Lots and lots of cat tracking results - just click on the cats...

http://cattracker.nz/meet-the-cats/

Despite that, the results supplied don't seem to tell us how far away from home cats travel...

http://cattracker.nz/wp-content/uploads/2017/12/Cat-Tracker-New-Zealand_report_Dec2017.pdf

An area of a bit over a hectare seems to be a typical stamping ground, with males roaming further than females.

And the Australian study results...

https://www.discoverycircle.org.au/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/Cat-Tracker-SA-report-February2017-web-size.pdf

In both cases, see "Sizes of home ranges".

There's also a UK version of this study...

https://thesmallcatproject.com/