A little over a week ago, I wrote about my experience of losing Peony while mountain biking, only to find her after searching for about 2 hours. I was incredibly lucky – according to the American Humane Association, one-third of all dogs and cats in the United States are reported missing in their lifetimes, and more than 80% are never found. Almost 10 million dogs and cats are lost or stolen in the U.S. each year, meaning that each year, 8 million dogs and cats are separated from their families.

This week's episode of #Petworking looks at the market for Pet GPS Trackers in the United States. I'm joined by Andrew Bleiman, EVP, North America at Tractive, one of the leading manufacturers of pet trackers. Given the large numbers of lost pets, you'd think demand for Pet GPS Trackers would be sky-high. However, I was shocked to learn from Andrew that market awareness for pet trackers in the United States is approximately 5% of pet-owning households.

Awareness. Not adoption. Awareness.

Andrew went on to note that of the households that are aware of pet GPS trackers, probably only 10-15% had ever owned a pet tracker. Further complicating the issue, is that of the 5% of households that claim awareness, many of them equate microchips with pet trackers. While microchips are a useful tool in returning lost pets to their owners, they are not capable of tracking your dog or cat in real time, in the way a GPS collar can.

Based on my personal experience, I'm a huge proponent of pet trackers, and would love to see broader adoption to lower the number of lost dogs and cats.

However, if you're on the fence, tune into this week's episode to learn about:

- The size and growth potential of the U.S. Pet Tracker market
- Why you should not use an Apple Air Tag as a pet tracking device
- Additional capabilities offered by some pet trackers (e.g., sleep monitoring, step counting, scratching, etc.), and how that data can be used to drive tremendous advances in animal healthcare
- Which pet trackers work with which cellular networks, and how you can see which tracker will give you the best coverage for where you live

I will say from personal experience, the cost of a pet tracker and the annual subscription fees pale in comparison to the feeling that you might have lost a member of your family. So, I would hope that we can get these adoption levels up beyond the shockingly low figures that Andrew and I discussed. There's a lot of room for growth in this market, which means there are a lot of pets that can benefit from an added safety measure. Here's hoping that in the coming years, we see the number of lost pets on a marked decline, while the adoption of pet trackers continues to skyrocket.