Pet trackers in which situation though? The times I’ve wanted a tracker on my dog is when we’re out in the woods for a hike and I worry he bolts after an animal or similar. I can’t see how an AirTag would help in that scenario.

That’s a good point. You’re right: they’d be useless there, unless you were so close to your dog that you could hear it anyway. I live in a city and a lost dog would be close to any number of people with phones at any given time, and it’d be very useful there.

That's the part of the "hope" people have with the AirTag is that their pet will happen to wander close to another compatible Apple device to update the tracking. I assume this is also why they are not the "suggested" use