GPS Tracking and Service Dogs

Service dogs are now going hi-tech by incorporating GPS tracking technology into their daily life.

Wearable technology exists for many reasons, and both for humans and now K-9s. Service dogs assist people with disabilities, and many of them will now be wearing vests that includes GPS trackers.

Not only that, but service dogs will actually use technology similar to Siri, where they can bark for 911 in an emergency.

Service dogs are a special type of dog that provide assistance to people with disabilities. They are trained to help people with hearing or visual impairments, seizures, mental illness, diabetes, autism, and many other physical or mental ailments.

There are certain breeds of dogs that are ideal to be service dogs, including golden retrievers, German shepherds, and Labrador retrievers. To be a service dog, the canine must have a good temperament, be very trainable, and have good physical health. They are generally trained by service dog organizations. While they used to be referred to as “seeing eye dogs,” service dogs can help people with many more disabilities than blindness.

The GPS tracking vest research project is lead by Dr. Melody Jackson, an inventor and director of the Center for BioInterface Research at Georgia Tech. This new project is being called The FIDO Project, which stands for Facilitating Interactions for Dogs with Occupations.

Service dogs already do a lot for their owners and can still contact emergency services through various methods. However, these devices will be easier to use and include sensors that can self-activate. For dogs that bite something or pull to perform any given task, they can use different commands to make everything simpler.

One example being used is that instead of trying to push a person against a hard surface to prevent falling during a seizure, they could activate a sensor to call 911 by tugging a certain area of their vest. The 911 operator would use the GPS tracker to find their location.

These vests will also be useful for dogs that are also search and rescue dogs. They can do their job while also letting their owner know where they are at all times. If the handler gets concerned by how long they have been out, they can pull up an app on their phone and know exactly where their dog has gone to. The dog will also be able to use a sensor to let the crew know when they have found something, so the dog doesn’t leave that area.

For a hearing-impaired person, the dog can use an alert on their vest when they hear a tornado siren or police siren, which lights up the vest and lets the person know about the emergency. Before this, it would be hard for the dog to communicate what kind of danger there is.

The GPS vest is still in the beta testing phase, and the researchers are currently working on improving the battery life of the vest.

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