---
date: 2026-02-22T23:53:05-07:00
description: "Wondering what sort of algorithm my dog uses for navigation"
image: "/images/otto-on-nature-path-algorithm.jpg"
lastmod: 2026-02-24T00:35:36-07:00
showTableOfContents: false
tags: ["dogs", "optimization"]
title: "Dog Based Search Path"
type: "post"
---

I was walking today on my preferred route.

I can leave my house, walk through a park behind it, cross a neighborhood road, walk through a "nature park" (where the nature is left to do its thing), cross a church parking lot, then take a canal-like path through tall natural grasses back to my neighborhood. Then its just some sidewalks to get back home.

Its wonderful! It helps me feel like I'm actually out in nature and escape from suburban sprawl.

While walking along the path, Otto came running up to check in with me, as he does after having sufficiently strayed off.

The path seems like it was a part of a pond or lake shore, as there is a steep drop off on one side. Otto happened to be on this side, and as he approached, I could see the "path" through many bushes and up a very steep, albeit short, ridge wall. I thought quickly and efficiently to myself that he would not be able to scale it.

Despite my extremely based and factual take, Otto charged ahead. And with little more effort than he normally gives while sprinting around, he crested and came to pant next to me with such ease!

Our drastically different calculus made me wonder. I wondered if dogs have some complex decision hierarchy like we do. I wondered if he just tried the first path he could see, whether or not it was viable.

I remember also reading _Entangled Life_ by Merlin Sheldrake, and hearing how slime molds perform various search algorithms in mazes to find food. I wonder how many biological processes should be mapped more frequently to the world of computer science!
