Tractive GPS Review: The Best GPS Tracker For Van Life Dogs?

Are you planning a trip with your dog and worried about what might happen if they run off in an unfamiliar place?

That was one of our biggest stresses when Lilly joined our family. She’s usually on lead, but there’s always that nagging “what if”… what if she slipped her collar, or the clip broke (which has actually happened before!) and she bolted?

When you’re living van life or travelling long-term with your pup, that worry doesn’t go away. Campsites, trailheads, busy parking areas… there are so many chances for them to wander off.

Most reviews of pet trackers cover the basics, but what we couldn’t find when we were searching was how they actually work for people travelling full-time with their dogs.

That’s why we decided to try the Tractive Dog 6 GPS Tracker – and why this review is written with van life in mind.

In this review we’ll share:

• What we love about it (and what we don’t),
• The features we’ve found most useful while living on the road,
• How it compares to alternatives like AirTags,
• And whether we think it’s worth the subscription cost for travellers like us.

What Is the Tractive GPS Tracker for Dogs?

The Tractive Dog 6 is the latest model of dog GPS tracking device that attaches to your dog’s collar or harness.

It weighs about 39g and measures 71 × 29 × 17 mm, which makes it a  bit slimmer and lighter than their previous models.

It’s super easy to clip onto the collar or harness, and Lilly doesn’t seem to mind it – we tend to attach it to her harness though because while it is smaller than previous models, it’s still quite boxy and has been mistaken for an e-collar in the past (which we really didn’t like).

Having it on the harness makes it less noticeable, and less likely to be confused for any sort of aversive device.

The Features That Actually Matter for Van Life

If you’re familiar with Tractive, then you’ll know how popular they are for tracking pet locations, but I was really surprised by how many other features this new model has when compared to the Dog 4!

Live Tracker & Location History

The core feature is the ability to track your dog’s location.

You can either track it Live, and get real-time location updates or check the location history and see what your pups been up to in the last day(s)

Within the tracking pack, you’ll be able to toggle to see a heatmap which shows you which areas your doggo spent the most time in, the timeline which shows you the route they took as well as the address where your dog is currently.

These are private to your account unless you choose to share them, and you can toggle each option on and off depending on what you want to see.

Walk Tracking

Another fun feature of this dog GPS tracker is the ability to switch on ‘walk tracker’. At first I thought this would track Lilly’s route independently, but it actually uses your phone’s location, so it works more like a smart watch or Strava, recording where you’ve walked rather than where your dog has gone.

Because we  mostly use the Live Tracking or Location History (which are based on the tracker itself and show exactly where Lilly’s been), we don’t really bother with Walk Tracking. For us, it feels a bit redundant because we already have our own fitness monitors.

That said, if you’re curious about your own routes with your dog, or like using apps such as Strava to record your walks anyway, you might enjoy having it all in one place within the Tractive app.

Health Monitoring

One of the upgrades in the latest Tractive is the health monitoring.

The Dog 4 could only track sleep and steps, but the Dog 6? This takes pet tracking to a whole new level!

Within the health tab of the app, you’ll be able to see things like heart rate, respiratory rate, activity and sleep activity and even barking frequency!

The longer your dog wears it, and the more data it has for a base line, the more accurate it will be and the easier it will be to spot any changes.

For example, if we see that Lilly is sleeping less through the night then that can be an indicator that she’s either had a stressful day or her stomach isn’t feeling great.

If that’s also paired with lower activity, and increased barking, it’s a sure sign we need a rest day and to monitor her for other signs her stomach might be a little off.

Of course, you don’t need a GPS or pet health tracker to tell you these things. When you live in a van and travel with your dog, you’re with them the majority of the day so these things can be easy to spot but being able to record the data makes it easier to spot patterns and see if there’s anything in our routine that needs changing.

I’m also not 100% sure on how accurate this data is even when the Tractive is on and worn all day considering that, for us at least, the device is worn on her harness. 

Bark Monitoring

Lilly isn’t a big barker, outside of the odd woof at things she finds scary or when she’s playing with Dec, so the bark monitoring hasn’t really told us anything new. We gave it a try but the app didn’t flag much – which is pretty accurate for her!

I imagine this feature would be more useful for people with vocal dogs, or for owners who leave their pups at home (or in the van) and want to know if they’ve been barking while alone. 

This is only for data tracking and alerting you, the owner, to when your dog is barking more than normal. It does not work like an anti-bark device and has no shock or vibrate function. That’s not what this is for, which is great news for anyone looking for an ethical GPS dog tracker!

Separation Anxiety Monitoring 

If you’re worried your pup might get stressed when left alone, you can use your Tractive GPS tracker to keep tabs on what’s going on!

Switching on the Separation Anxiety Monitoring will trigger the device to watch out for increased levels of stress, such as increased heart rate or rapid breathing, as well as stress behaviours like pacing or whining.

We tested this on a couple of occasions when we left Lilly in the van for short trips to the shop. It was reassuring to check the app and see that she was calm – no pacing, or stress. However, it does only trigger with prolonged behaviours so if your pup tends to whine/cry/bark in short bursts, it may not pick that up.

It doesn’t replace doing separation training, of course, but it did give us peace of mind that she was settled while we were away.

Virtual Fence

The Tractive Dog 6 has the ability for you to set a ‘safe zone’ for your dog, and will alert you if they happen to stray out of that. Most people use this for their homes and yards.

They also have a ‘danger zone’ setting which alerts you if your dog goes into that area – like a barn or your neighbours yard. 

As a van lifer and traveller, this is a feature I was really excited to test out. I imagined being able to use it to set the parameters of our camp and be alerted if Lilly somehow slips her lead – which has happened before due to faulty clips! – and wander further than intended.

But what I didn’t realise, and this really is my own fault due to lack of research, is that this feature has a minimum radius of 100m which is far too much for a campsite and to be honest… far too much for the average home too.

By the time she’s strayed 100m, at Lilly’s speed, she could really be anywhere by the time we get the alert.

I understand why it’s so large – no GPS signal is 100% accurate 100% of the time, so I’m sure if they allowed the area to go much smaller you would be constantly getting false alerts. But still, it made the feature pretty useless for our van life set-up. 

*Again, this does not act as an invisible fence which punishes the dog for going outside of a boundary. It is only to alert you that the dog has gone further than expected.

Light And Sound

This GPS tracker for dogs also has a light and sound option to help you see your dog at night, and find the device if you lose it.

You can use the sound as an emergency recall too, or to locate your dog if you can’t see them but you ideally need to do some training to desensitise your dog to this noise to avoid scaring them when you use it. Especially if you have a noise sensitive pup, or they wear the Tractive on their collar because the noise close to their ears can be startling.

We desensitised Lilly to this by holding the GPS tracker, starting the noise and dropping her food. We then put it on her and repeated. We recommend contacting a trainer if you’re not sure how to build up a noise recall in a positive way.

Danger Alerts

This is another feature we really appreciate as full time travellers with a dog who can be prone to a little danger every now and then – like Lilly, who has been poisoned on two separate occasions.

When a user comes across a danger in their area – like poisoned bait, or broken glass – they can make a note of it within the Tractive App, and it will show a red danger mark on the map for other users in the area.

Often, this information is shared on local Facebook groups but obviously as van lifers we’re often in a new place that we’re not familiar with so this is a fantastic feature for keeping our pups safe or at least staying aware.

Unfortunately, processionary caterpillars are the most common danger that we come across in Portugal, so we’ve started using this feature to make note of particularly bad patches we come across on popular walking tracks.

Tractive Vs Air Tag

One of the biggest questions we’ve seen people asking is why use a Tractive GPS when you can use Air Tags for free.

The biggest issue with that is that Air Tags don’t have their own built in GPS or wifi.

They rely on being near an Apple device in order to piggyback off their signals and then send that data to your phone.

This is fine if you only ever walk your dog in towns or places where there’s guaranteed to be a connection available – because it doesn’t have to be yours, it could be any other device – but if your dog strays out of range, you won’t be able to track them. That makes them pretty useless in rural areas once they’re out of range.

Tractive GPS can still have connectivity issues in places where there’s limited to no mobile signal (because of the inbuilt SIM card), which causes delayed reporting and difficulty using the Live function. But it will still be collecting data and will send it to the app once there’s a signal again.

What We Don’t Love About the Tractive GPS Tracker

There are pros and cons to everything, and unfortunately it didn’t take us long to find the downsides to Tractive Dog 6 for us personally.

The Virtual Fence Radius

The biggest downside of the Tractive Dog 6, for us as van lifers, is that the virtual fence area has to be a minimum of 100m radius which is great if you live on a big property, but we were hoping to be able to use this feature around our van when we’re parked up. For Lilly, 100m is simply too much – she moves fast when she wants to, and by the time the alert pings, she could be long gone.

The Battery

The second biggest downside to the Tractive Dog 6 is the battery life. They claim it lasts up to 7 days, but we’ve been using it for over a year now and the most we’ve been able to get is around 4 days if we turn it off over night and only put it on when we’re actively out and about walking. When we used it for 24/7 monitoring, it lasted around 2 days. This is fine when she’s with us and we can recharge it but if she was to get lost, assuming she had a full battery, that would give us only 48 hours to find her before the GPS dies and ultimately becomes useless. I think this is pretty normal across most GPS devices though.

The Size

Even though they’ve come a long way from the original huge dog GPS trackers, we still think the Tractive Dog 6 is too big for medium to small dogs.

Lilly is around 15kg, and when she wears it on her collar rather than her harness, it looks quite boxy and is often mistaken for an eCollar or anti-bark device.

Having to constantly explain it’s a GPS can be frustrating, so I wish they were still a little bit sleeker in design.

There are others on the market, like the Fi Collar, which appear to be thinner but unfortunately they’re not available in the UK or Europe yet.

What We DO Love About the Tractive GPS Tracker

Aside from the peace of mind, here are some of the key things we really like about Tractive.

The Danger Alerts

We really like that we’ll get alerts if we move into an area with known hazards – especially processionary caterpillars that can be hard to spot. 

It’s Waterproof!

Lilly has discovered a love for lakes – so knowing that she can splash about without having to worry about her Tractive getting broken is really good!

So, Should You Buy the Tractive GPS Dog Tracker?

When we first started looking into GPS trackers for dogs, most of them didn’t seem worth the money or hassle. Between clunky designs, limited availability, the inclusion of aversive features, and questionable reviews, we held off for a long time.

The Tractive Dog 6 was the first tracker that actually felt like it could work for our lifestyle and after using it, we’re glad we gave it a go.

It isn’t perfect – the size could still be improved, and the virtual fence is basically useless for van life campsites – but the peace of mind it gives us on the road is invaluable. Knowing we can track Lilly if she ever slips her harness again is worth the subscription alone.

If you’re a van lifer, road tripper, or just someone who loves exploring outdoors with your dog, we’d say the Tractive GPS Dog Tracker is absolutely worth it