As a fitness editor and marathon runner, it was only a matter of time before I started tracking my dog's steps as well as my own. My partner, I'm one step away from buying our Cocker Spaniel, Toby, one of the best fitness trackers or setting up a Strava account.

Undisturbed, I tied the little tracker to Toby's collar and ran around the local forest. After 1 week of testing, Toby recorded a total of 62 miles on the device — which is a hell of a lot farther than I would run. Here are the pros and cons of dog trackers and what surprised me the most.

You don't need to be particularly tech savvy to set up a PitPat tracker - it comes in a box with a wireless charging pad. The Qi certified charging pad can also charge your iphone.

After this, connect the tracker to the PitPat app, enter the dog's breed and weight data, and strap the tracker to the dog's collar or harness, and you can use it immediately. I would say the whole process took about 15 minutes.

Another plus of PitPat is that both me and my partner can see Toby's data from our phones.1 In fact, I can share his data with the whole family, but judging by the response I get from the "puppy date" on family WhatsApp, they're too interested

to have to pay a monthly fee to see the dog's data on pitpat, unlike other GPS dog trackers on the market. Once you buy the tracker199/£149 tracker and connect it to your phone, there is no additional cost. PitPat also makes a cheap activity tracker, which I bought before this one, but it does not track GPS.

On the day I travel to the Toms Guide Office in London, Toby goes out with a dog walker. The GPS tracker was able to see exactly where Toby was, even though I was sitting in an office 17 miles away.

The tracker uses satellite signals to determine the location of the dog and is forwarded to PitPat's HQ every 2, 4, or 8 minutes. When you press the "Find my dog" button in the PitPat app, the next time the tracker connects to PITPAT HQ, it will tell you to connect to GPS and show you the dog's location. Every 10 seconds or so, the tracker will send the updated location and after 10 minutes of tracking, the GPS will disappear.

This means there is a slight delay between clicking on the app and checking the dog's location. PitPat also says that if your dog is in an area with a bad cell phone connection, you may have a hard time seeing the location of your dog live I live in an area with a notoriously bad network (I can't even get 3G in my house), and on some occasions it probably took more than a quarter, but There was no problem finding toby. PitPat has a 21-day return policy so you can get your money back if you find it doesn't work for you

Even though you can't test the signal strength before forking for a GPS tracker, I think GPS is still on the market. There are Bluetooth trackers I've seen a lot of people use air tags on their dog collars, but with these, the iPhone relies on someone close to the dog to get the signal. Toby has a great recall but I am relieved that he will have to run off, a GPS tracker will be able to see where he is and keep track of him.

Without getting into the minefield that is pet nutrition, PitPat allowed me to see at a glance the number of calories Toby was burning every day. This ranged from 7.1 in his least active days (he walked 783 miles in total) to 15 in his most active days (he ran/walked 1,099 miles). Like humans, the amount of calories a dog needs depends on its breed, weight, and activity level, but PitPat helped him see at a glance whether he needed to have an extra half scoop of his dinner and kibble.

PitPat displays all the data of your dog in an easy-to-understand chart. Along the way, you have an active minute of your dog, which then breaks down into minutes spent running, walking and playing. There is also an overall activity timeline where you can see how many hours your dog has spent "pottering" and "resting", how many calories your dog has burned, and how many miles he or she has traveled. Toby is a high-energy cocker spaniel who spends 90% of his walk running after the ball, jumping into the water he finds, or clearing through the woods, although he doesn't get accurate data on how much he sleeps at night, since he takes off his collar when he's at home.

Toby is a high-energy cocker spaniel who spends 90% of his walk running after the ball, jumping into the water he finds, or clearing through the woods. You can also use the following methods: *********** The pit putt weighs about 30g and is about 2.4 inches by 1.3 inches. I admit, I didn't have high expectations for the plastic tracker, or the velcro that came with it to attach to his collar, but so far

in 1 week of testing, the tracker has been submerged in a river, rolled cow dung (then washed in the kitchen sink), and 1st time when Toby plays with the other dogs. Being knocked several times a day

PitPat calculates your dog's travel distance by guessing the average stride length depending on the breed and age. Toby is a mix of Working Cocker Spaniel and Show Cocker Spaniel and is especially great for his breed. On the first few runs in the pit putts, I found that I was running farther than Toby, but unlike me, he is deviating from the path. For example, he ran back to sniff something and sprinted to catch me.

Fortunately, there is a quick fix. You can increase or decrease the estimate by clicking "Adjust distance estimate" in the PitPat app. I increased Toby's 40% and found that it was about right on my next run with him.

Another drawback is that you can only see how far the dog has moved, and you can't see where it has been.1 Also, my dream of seeing a GPS map of Toby's activity during a walk has been dashed because I can't set the tracker to record specific activities.

Despite working for a tech brand, I always leave home with my various devices in low battery mode. Try as I might, I don't seem to remember to plug in my technology at the end of the day.

During my week of testing, I charged the PitPat once before realizing I could make my life easier by changing the GPS settings on the device. You can't turn off PitPat so it wakes up every few minutes to ask if you need to start tracking your dog"

In the standard setting, call home every 4 minutes and it takes an average of 2-3 minutes to start tracking your dog. There's also an emergency setting that calls home every 2 minutes and tracks the dog in 90 seconds, and an economic setting that calls home every 8 minutes, but it takes about 10 minutes to start tracking.

Toby is glued to my side most of the time, so Economy mode works fine for me, but if your dog is out of the house and needs faster GPS tracking, be prepared to charge the tracker more.

My verdict after 1 week of testing. This is definitely not the essential thing every dog owner needs, but I'm obsessed with keeping track of Toby's data every day. Whatever is your reason for buying a dog GPS tracker I also give to me that GPS trackers will allow me to get updates on his live location if Toby needs to chase a squirrel and lose me on a walk, this is something worth a look. Now, back to finding out how to make Toby a Strava account...