Tractive GPS Dog Tracker: What Is It and Is It Worth It?

If you’ve ever had that heart-stopping moment when your dog disappears out of sight, you’ll know just how quickly your mind starts imagining the worst.

That’s one of the reasons we’ve been so interested in GPS trackers for dogs.

For the past few months we’ve been testing the Tractive DOG 6 GPS Tracker on our own dogs, Puzzle and Blaze. We wanted to properly use them ourselves before deciding whether they were something we’d recommend to our customers.

After putting them through their paces on our own dogs, we’ve been really impressed – so Tractive has now joined the range at Shine Pets.

How common are lost pets in New Zealand?

Probably more common than you might think.

More than 10,000 pets were reported lost through LostPet in New Zealand during 2025, and the number of dogs reported lost increased by nearly 10% compared with the previous year.

Of course, microchipping your dog is incredibly important. But there’s one big difference between a microchip and a GPS tracker.

A microchip helps identify your dog once somebody has found them and had their chip scanned.

A GPS tracker can help you find them.

So, what does a Tractive GPS Tracker actually do?

The Tractive DOG 6 attaches to your dog’s collar or harness and connects to the Tractive app on your phone.

From there you can see your dog’s location, track their activity and access a surprising amount of information about what they’ve been up to.

And there’s a lot more to it than simply putting a dot on a map.

LIVE GPS Tracking

This is the big one.

If your dog disappears, you can activate LIVE Tracking and see their location updating every 2–3 seconds on the map (trust us - we have tried this with Puzzle MANY times!)

For dogs who enjoy off-lead adventures, have a tendency to wander, chase wildlife or occasionally make questionable life choices, that’s a pretty reassuring thing to have!

Virtual Fences and escape alerts

You can create a Virtual Fence around an area such as your home.

If your dog leaves the Safe Zone, Tractive can send an alert to your phone (and yes, this is a frequently used feature for Puzzle too! 🙊)

You can also create No-Go Zones and receive notifications if your dog enters an area you don’t want them to be in.

For owners of escape artists, this feature alone could provide a lot of peace of mind.

Find out where they’ve actually been

Tractive records your dog’s Location History, so you can look back and see where they’ve travelled.

This is particularly interesting for dogs who spend time off lead.

You might walk 5km…but how far did your dog actually travel?

It can also help answer the question many owners of wandering dogs have probably asked at some point:

“Where on earth do you go?!”

Activity and sleep tracking

This is one of the features we’ve enjoyed more than we expected.

Tractive records your dog’s daily activity and sleep, allowing you to see patterns over time.

You can see how active they’ve been during the day and compare their activity with previous days.

For active dogs, working dogs and dogs involved in sports, it’s pretty interesting information to have.

Health and behaviour monitoring

The DOG 6 goes beyond steps and kilometres.

It can also monitor things such as:

• Resting heart rate
• Resting respiratory rate
• Sleep
• Barking
• Scratching
• Activity patterns

Over time, Tractive learns what’s normal for your dog and can highlight certain changes.

It’s certainly not a replacement for your vet, but we really like having another way to notice changes in our dogs’ normal patterns.

Is it waterproof?

Yes.

The DOG 6 is waterproof, which was definitely a requirement for us considering how much time our dogs spend at the beach, in creeks and generally finding water wherever they possibly can!

How long does the battery last?

Tractive states that the DOG 6 battery can last up to 14 days when using a Power Saving Zone.

Real-world battery life depends on how you use it. Features such as LIVE Tracking use more battery, so frequent use will mean charging more often.

Does Tractive need a subscription?

Yes – and this is important to understand before buying one.

Tractive contains its own built-in SIM card and uses mobile networks to send your dog’s GPS location to the app.

Because of this, an active Tractive subscription is required.

Different subscription options are available depending on the plan length and features you choose.

It’s also important to remember that although GPS can determine your dog’s position, Tractive needs a cellular connection to send that information to your phone. If your dog is somewhere without mobile coverage, you won’t receive continuous live location updates until the tracker reconnects.

Who would we recommend Tractive for?

You definitely don’t need to own a serial escape artist to benefit from a GPS tracker.

We think they’re particularly useful for:

• Dogs who enjoy off-lead adventures
• Beach and bush walking dogs
• Dogs with a strong chase instinct
• Farm and lifestyle-block dogs
• Dogs who wander
• Escape artists
• Active and sporting dogs
• Owners who simply want extra peace of mind

Even the most reliable dog can get a fright, follow an interesting scent or make an unexpected decision.

What do we think after using Tractive ourselves?

For us, this was important.

We didn’t want to stock a GPS tracker simply because it sounded good on paper. We’ve had the opportunity to actually use Tractive on Puzzle and Blaze for several months first.

And that’s ultimately why we’ve decided to stock them.

We love being able to see exactly where our dogs are, we’ve enjoyed the activity information far more than we expected, and there’s a huge amount of reassurance in knowing that if one of them does disappear, we have another tool available to help find them.

Hopefully, we’ll never actually need it for that reason.

But we’d much rather have it and never need it than need it and not have it.