Bear Belly Adventures

For those who have never read my stuff, Nana is my service dog. She has been an overwhelmingly positive addition to my life. She’s smart, photogenic, and in so many ways makes my life manageable.

She has her kryptonite though.

Smells.

She can become completely scent-focused, and when we’re traveling, I’ll let her roam when it’s safe. I know that when she’s locked in on a scent, I’m no longer the most interesting thing. She usually heads out for 30 minutes or less before coming back to check in.

That has been the longest 30 minutes ever.

She’s not a hardened farm dog. She doesn’t understand the risks that are out there. The first time she disappeared into the woods and I lost sight of her, it was nerve-racking.

I knew I needed a solution.

My first thought was a commercial tracker. I tried the Fi Collar—a GPS unit with LTE connectivity. When it worked, it worked it only worked okay. Most of the time, it felt like it took forever to get a location, and tracking was inconsistent. It also depends on cell service and a subscription.

That doesn’t work when you’re off-grid.

I looked into Garmin tracking systems used for hunting dogs. They work without cell service, but they rely on large antennas and bulky collars. At around $600 just to get started, it wasn’t something I wanted to commit to.

So I decided to build something instead.

My son had introduced me to Meshtastic, and it seemed like it could fit what I needed.

At its core, Meshtastic is a low-power radio network that lets devices communicate without the internet. Each device passes messages along, creating a mesh. Range depends heavily on terrain—in open desert I’ve seen up to about 6 miles—but in more realistic conditions like forest, 1–2 miles is more typical.

Most of these radios also include GPS, which means they can share their location across the network.

That’s where this started to make sense.

Nana now carries a small, credit card-sized radio with GPS on her collar. I have a base radio in the trailer. Her position gets transmitted back to camp through the mesh.

From there, I built a local homepage and geofence system to turn that data into something useful.

It displays a map with a defined radius around camp. If Nana leaves that radius, I get an alert. When she comes back in, I get another. It can also send messages across my private mesh network to other devices I carry.
The entire system runs on a Raspberry Pi and works completely off-grid. Maps are stored locally, so even without internet, everything continues to function. When a connection is available, it adds extras like satellite imagery and phone alerts—but those are optional.

The core system doesn’t depend on anything external.

It has been—and still is—a work in progress.

This isn’t a plug-and-play solution. It took nearly two months just to get the geofence working reliably. I broke it more times than I can count while improving it. Since then, I’ve added fail-safes, watchdogs, and redundancy to keep it running.

If you need something polished and guaranteed to work every time, this isn’t it.

But if you’re living off-grid, interested in local communication, and don’t mind tinkering, it’s a rewarding project.

Beyond tracking Nana, Meshtastic works like a decentralized text messaging system. Devices connect to your phone via Bluetooth, and messages can be passed across the mesh without cell service. I wouldn’t rely on it for emergencies, but for private communication while camping or hiking, it works surprisingly well.

Most of the time, Nana is still on a 30–50 foot lead. We’re working on her recall, especially when she’s distracted. But now, when I let her roam, I feel a lot more at ease.

Because now, when she disappears over a ridge or into the trees…

I’m not guessing anymore.