I used to watch a lot of the Jetsons as a kid mostly because there was nothing else on after school. I remember their dog Astro and his walks on the treadmill behind the house. Garmin has named its latest GPS dog tracking system after that cartoon pooch. The system is a bit strange to me. It is aimed at hunters, and can track a bunch of dogs at the same time.
Each of those pooches has to have its own GPS collar and then one Astro 320 unit can track up to ten of those collar-wearing dogs at once for up to nine miles on flat terrain. The handheld unit has a color screen that can be read in direct sunlight too. The strange part about his system to me is what good would it be to have your hunting dog nine miles away? If you can train that dog to activate his GPS when he sees some prey, maybe having the dog so far away would be a way to hunt.
I guess this would be a cool system for people with escape-artist dogs too. I once had a Jack Russell terrier that was too smart for his own good. He could escape from anything, and I would end up prowling the neighborhood looking for him. You have to be serious about your pet tracking though to buy this tracker. The Astro 320 is $649 (USD) with a single collar.
