Many of us would do anything to save our furry friends when they're in danger, and when Millie the Jack Russell-whippet cross found herself stranded on the mudflats in Havant, Hampshire, it took a team of police, firefighters, and coastguards to rescue her.
The dog disappeared after slipping her owner's lead and after frantic public appeals, she was eventually spotted on the mudflats - where she was in danger of being whisked away by the rapidly rising tide.
Millie initially defied all rescue efforts and remained stuck in place - until one member of the rescue team suggested they attach a sausage to one of the drones that had been used to track her.
A post on the Denmead Drone Search and Rescue Facebook page read: "After employing the expertise of some locals, we were told if Millie wasn't moved within a few hours she would have been cut off, and the area she was in underwater, with drowning highly likely.
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"We had to think fast, one of our fully qualified drone pilots, suggested attaching food to the drone, to try and lure her out of the danger area. We attached a 2 oz sausage to the drone."
Much to the surprise of the rescue team, the sausage trick worked - and Millie was able to make her way out of the mud and back onto dry land.
The Facebook post continued: "We didn't think it would work, but it did. We managed to lure Millie 300m over into a safety zone. Luckily she stayed in that area so we had prevented her from possibly drowning."
Although the sausage trick was a success, Millie raced off again and had to be tracked a second time before she was eventually reunited with her owner, Emma Oakes.
Emma said of the ordeal: “Relief just poured over me. It was just absolutely fantastic to have her home.
“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.
“Millie’s a rescue dog so she’s quite timid. She loves being at home more than anything and now she’s back all she’s doing is sleeping. She just sleeps and eats and looks at you as if to say: ‘I’m resting, leave me alone.’”
Chris Taylor, the chair of the Denmead Drone Search and Rescue team, said the idea to use sausages as bait was a "last resort", but the team will now try the same method in similar situations in the future.
He 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. It was something we had never tried before – the sausages were the last resort, as we couldn’t reach her by kayak or any other means.
"Because Millie was hungry it worked at luring her away from the danger to higher ground, which wouldn’t go underwater. We certainly would consider using sausages again: every dog and search operation is always going to be different, but if we were ever in a similar situation again we would employ the same methods to lure the dog."
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