As someone who has had to search the local woods for a runaway dog, I know how frustrating and worrying it can be when it’s getting dark and the dog is nowhere to be seen.

As a whistle and dog treats don’t always cut it, particularly if the worse happens and your dog is stolen, along comes a technological solution – put a GPS tag on your dog’s collar so you can always find him.

Retrieva has teamed up with Orange to develop the Tracking and Anti-theft collar which is both waterproof and tamperproof.

Whenever the dog leaves home without the owner’s knowledge, or someone tampers with the collar, a text message is sent to the owner’s mobile phone. Similarly, if the dog goes missing while on a walk, the owner can request that the dog’s location is transmitted to a mobile phone for plotting on a map.

The collar contains an Orange SIM card and uses a combination of GPS, GSM, and radio frequency to accurately track the dog. That, coupled with Orange’s claimed 99% UK coverage, means that the dog should never be out of signal range.

The collar has to be charged at the ICYou base station, so just hope that your dog doesn’t go missing when it’s not wearing it.

There’s even a panic button (for the owner to use, naturally) which can send a message to predetermined numbers should it be required when out and about.

Launching soon, the unit will cost £250 plus £9.99 per month to operate. Quite a hefty investment, at one level, but one that many dog owners would probably be prepared to pay. Pet insurance is all very well, but money doesn’t cover the distress of losing a much-loved pet. This solution could.

Of course the system could also be used to track any other living creatures or inanimate objects. Visit the Retrieva Tracking web site for more details…