Wireless location assisted zone guidance system incorporating shepherding of wayward dogs

A wireless location assisted zone guidance system configured to assist in the training and management of an animal and providing an extended area of behavioral guidance, comprising:

• a housing;
• an electrical power source contained within said housing;
• at least one animal stimulation apparatus electrically coupled with said housing and powered by said electrical power source;
• a wireless location determination apparatus contained within said housing, powered by said electrical power source, and configured to operatively generate current position identifying information representative of a current position of said housing;
• an electrical processor coupled to said wireless location determination apparatus and operative to receive said current position identifying information therefrom;
• memory electrically accessible by said electrical processor;
• a data table that is stored in said electrically accessible memory;
• a plurality of guidance zone values stored in said data table, with each guidance zone value stored in said data table identifying a one of a safe zone associated with a first behavioral guidance stimulation, an alert zone circumscribing said safe zone associated with a second behavioral guidance stimulation different from said first behavioral guidance stimulation, and an out-of-bounds zone circumscribing said alert zone associated with a third behavioral guidance stimulation different from said first and second behavioral guidance stimulations;
• said electrical processor configured to operatively compare said received current position identifying information to said data table to generate a first represented current position within said data table and to generate a second represented current position that is subsequent to said first represented current position and further configured to vary an output of said at least one animal stimulation apparatus responsive to said second represented current position relative to said first represented current position, to calculate a displacement from a difference between said second represented current position and said first represented current position and further compare said calculated displacement with a hysteresis constant, and further configured to determine when said housing is outside of said safe zone and said alert zone, and to control an output of said at least one animal stimulation apparatus to provide positive stimulus when said housing is determined to be outside of said safe zone and said alert zone and said second represented current position relative to said first represented current position is indicative of movement from said out-of-bounds zone into said alert zone.