Don’t fence me in…

Apparently, this is my former stray Chi’s theme tune according to my lovely auntie. The reason being, when he first moved in officially he’d take himself off on jaunts for days at a time; sometimes it would stretch to a week.  This is the reason we purchased the next item I’m doing a review on…

THE GPAWS

The GPaws is a pretty small plastic unit that attaches to your cats collar. It has a little pocket that it slots into really snugly so it won’t fall out, and the size doesn’t seem to phase the cat at all.

You charge up the unit and then attach it to the collar. Your cat goes a walk, and on his or her return you can see where they like to visit the most by making sure they wear it fairly frequently.

It’s a brilliant device, but unfortunately there are flaws. You have to wait for your cats return; and if your cat is a wanderer that can be days. The guarantee of them coming back wearing a safety release collar is debateable, and anyone that puts collars on their cat knows there’s a risk involved if you don’t use the safety release.

The second thing is that you aren’t seeing what they’re doing as they’re doing it. The device is misleading in this sense. You can make an account online and you can upload the files it stores, but it isn’t a GPS. There ARE devices of a similar size available that are tracking systems, but they’re twice as expensive. And they’re not manufactured by a UK company so shipping costs are higher.

Overall though, the product is a rather useful device (as long as your cat doesn’t lose their collar!) to help you get an insight into  favourite haunts, should you need them at a later date. And it’s rather fascinating to see some of the routes taken by your cat when they’re not being observed by you.

Darwin and Chi (modelling his GPaws before he lost it) surveying their domain