Patent ID: 8692676

Claim:
An animal monitoring system including: a. an animal transceiver unit for placement on an animal having a transceiver circuit for transmitting and receiving signals; b. a base transceiver unit for operation to monitor relative movement of the animal transceiver unit having base transceiver circuitry for transmitting and receiving signals relative to the animal transceiver unit; wherein, at least one of the animal transceiver unit and the base transceiver unit is configured to provide an indicia of relative distance between the animal transceiver unit and the base transceiver unit in response to signal communication between the animal transceiver unit and the base transceiver unit to monitor relative movement between the base transceiver unit and the animal transceiver unit, and wherein further at least one of the animal and base transceiver units operates to provide a reference control distance and wherein at least one of the animal and base transceiver units operates to compare the relative distance between the animal transceiver unit and the base transceiver unit with the reference control distance to produce an output control signal when the comparison meets a criteria for control; c. a motion detector for detecting movement of the animal to enable at least one of transmission and reception of signals between the animal transceiver unit and the base transceiver unit at a desired frequency of communication; wherein at least one of the animal and base transceiver units operates to increase the frequency of communication between the animal and base transceiver units upon detection of a relative movement of the animal and base transceiver units to within a desired distance relative to the reference control distance; and d. animal stimulus circuitry for providing a stimulus to the animal in response to the output control signal.