Although there’s a lot of love for dogs out there, even the most doting fur parent will readily admit that they have an uncanny knack for getting themselves into trouble.
And unfortunately, this seems particularly true when they enter the water as stories abound of Good Samaritans narrowly rescuing dogs and similar species from drowning.
But while it’s not hard to see how they could get out of their depth in a pool or a rushing river, some imperiled dogs saved from open waters can leave us scratching our heads as to how they got there in the first place.
And in one close call from the U.K., it seemed that the only solution for such a strange situation was an even stranger idea.
Millie the Jack Russell Terrier is a rescue dog that’s known to be timid, and that trait seemed to be the start of her recent problems.
According to The Guardian , she had slipped free from her leash in Havant, Hampshire before being spotted among the English county’s treacherous mudflats days later.
As Chris Taylor of the Denmead Drone Search and Rescue Team said, “If we hadn’t had got her away from that area, the tide would have come in, and she would have been at risk of drowning.”
Worse yet, Millie wasn’t exactly making herself easy to rescue.
Although the team had been using drones to track her location, they used kayaks like these and similar craft to try and bring the dog to safety.
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However, it was hard to reach her at the best of times and she resisted any effort to approach her. With the clock ticking on her situation, the team had to get creative and thought of an unusual last resort.
And that was to put one of the drones front and center, but not before the team dangled a sausage from it.
Taylor explained that a resident in the beach community they were mounting the rescue from cooked some the sausages for them. The team then attached the meat to the drone with string.
In his words, “It was a crazy idea.”
Nonetheless, Millie was hungry enough that it worked and rescuers used the drone to lure her to higher ground that they were sure wouldn’t be affected by the tides.
But while the sausage idea may have seemed crazy to the rescue team, it made perfect sense to Millie’s relieved owner Emma Oakes.
As she put it, “Millie really likes food and she’ll eat anything you give her … raw carrots, cucumber – but she much prefers sausages. Meat is her favourite food, so dangling a sausage was probably the best thing they could lure her with.”
She’s ecstatic to have Millie home safe, but Millie’s clearly been exhausted by the ordeal since she’s just been sleeping and eating since her return.
h/t: The Guardian