Skip to main content

Stranded dog lured to safety by sausage dangling from a drone

Share

Volunteers have rescued a runaway dog from dangerous mud flats -- by luring her to safety with freshly cooked sausages tied to a drone.

Millie, a rescue dog, slipped her collar and went missing on Thursday, Jan. 13 while out for a walk in Hampshire, southern England.

Alerted by her worried owner, volunteer organization Denmead Drone Search and Rescue (DDSAR) set up a drone to track Millie.

After covering a large distance, the dog became stranded on mud flats that can flood in high tide, 20-year-old DDSAR volunteer Stefani Dennis told CNN.

Volunteers initially set about on foot, and on kayaks, to try to get close to Millie, who is a jack russell whippet cross.

The coastguard, fire services and the police also tried to help catch her, said Dennis.

But because she was so spooked, efforts to get close to her risked pushing her even further away and potentially into danger.

On the Sunday, one of the volunteers had an idea: why not dangle sausages from the drones and lure Millie to safety remotely?

A NEIGHBOUR HELPS OUT -- BY FRYING UP SAUSAGES

"One of the guys [called Dave] said, as a last resort, why don't we try tying a sausage to a drone?

"This was day three, she'd been there on the mud flats for two days," Dennis told CNN.

"One of the neighbours who lived by the beach came out and said she'd cook them for us. She was under a lot of pressure, she must have felt the world was on her shoulders," Dennis added. "But these sausages were obviously very tasty."

The neighbour also provided the string, and the team of volunteers set about tying the cooked sausages to a number of drones, sending them out on rotation.

"The string was tied around the body of the drone and around the sausage to make it dangle around two or three metres -- it was very hard to gauge how close you were to the ground but it worked somehow.

"People were walking by and didn't know what was going on, it was hilarious," she said.

Once the sausage took flight and approached the dog, Millie began sniffing the air and trying to catch it.

"She was very hungry and got hold of it at one point -- and almost took the drone with her, she got about half a sausage."

Millie followed the sausage off of the mud flats, onto safer ground.

But her escapade didn't end there and she continued running, eventually ending up in an industrial estate on Monday, Jan. 17, where she was reunited with her owner.

"I think all of us cried, I was so thankful that she made it home," Dennis added.

"The way the community came together saved Millie."

CTVNews.ca Top Stories

How do you navigate the social media minefield with your kids?

Growing fears about social media's harm have sparked lawsuits against social media companies from hundreds of school districts in the United States and now Canada. CTVNews.ca wants to know whether your children are addicted to social media or if you have concerns about their usage of platforms such as Facebook, Snapchat, TikTok and X.

Local Spotlight

N.B. man wins $64 million from Lotto 6/49

A New Brunswicker will go to bed Thursday night much richer than he was Wednesday after collecting on a winning lottery ticket he let sit on his bedroom dresser for nearly a year.

Record-setting pop tab collection for Ontario boy

It started small with a little pop tab collection to simply raise some money for charity and help someone — but it didn’t take long for word to get out that 10-year-old Jace Weber from Mildmay, Ont. was quickly building up a large supply of aluminum pop tabs.