What height to fly to find a lost dog
Fly 20 to 25 m above the ground. Lower, you cover too little ground per battery; higher, a dog shrinks to a few pixels and both people and AI start to miss it.
How big a dog looks at each height
For a DJI Mini 2 filming straight down (its video covers 71.6° from side to side), and a dog about 60 cm long seen from above:
| Height above ground | Width of ground in the video | A 60 cm dog in 4K | The same dog in 1080p |
|---|---|---|---|
| 15 m (49 ft) | 22 m | 106 px | 53 px |
| 20 m (66 ft) | 29 m | 80 px | 40 px |
| 25 m (82 ft) | 36 m | 64 px | 32 px |
| 30 m (98 ft) | 43 m | 53 px | 27 px |
| 40 m (131 ft) | 58 m | 40 px | 20 px |
| 50 m (164 ft) | 72 m | 32 px | 16 px |
| 60 m (197 ft) | 87 m | 27 px | 13 px |
Detection gets unreliable when a dog is only around 20 pixels long, and video compression makes it worse. That is why 4K helps and why 50 m is too high for a small drone.
What we saw in our tests
On a beach in Spain, in October 2026, we flew over a cream-coloured dog. At 50 m the AI did not pick it up. At 20 to 25 m it did, in the live video and in the footage from the memory card.
Obstacles come first
- Trees are often 15 to 25 m tall. The app keeps a margin above the highest known obstacle near the route.
- Power lines are hard to see on screen. The app slows down and climbs near the known ones, but not every line is on the map: look at the area before you fly low.
- On a hillside, a fixed height above the take-off point can mean 5 m above the slope in one place and 60 m in another. The app follows the terrain so the height above the ground stays the same.
- Most countries set the limit at 120 m (400 ft) above the ground.
App Store · coming soon Google Play · coming soon
Reviewed on October 23, 2026.
Share this page
WhatsApp · Facebook · X · Telegram · Reddit · Email ·
Ask an AI about it: ChatGPT · Claude · Perplexity · Google AI Mode