Rescuers lure stranded dog to safety by hanging sausage from drone

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Animal rescuers in England helped lure a lost dog to safety by hanging a sausage from a drone to prevent her from drowning in marshland.

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Millie the dog went missing on Thursday, Jan. 13, after slipping out of her collar while out on a walk in Hampshire, southern England.

The Jack Russell-whippet cross was eventually spotted on the mudflats, and in danger of being engulfed by the rising tide.

The coastguard, fire services, the police and volunteers — some even on kayaks — attempted to rescue the stranded dog, but were unsuccessful.

By the third day, faced with the possibility of the pup drowning from the incoming tide, a drone pilot who helped locate the runaway dog suggested they try tying food on string from the small aircrafts to lure her to safety.

“It was a crazy idea,” Chris Taylor, the chair of Denmead Drone Search and Rescue (DDSAR) told The Guardian .

“One of the local residents on the beach where we were flying from supplied us with the sausages… The woman cooked them up for us and we attached them with string,” Taylor said.

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Like most dogs enticed by food, the hungry dog took the bait and followed the dangling sausages — one attached on each of the drones — used to guide her to higher ground.

“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,” DDSAR volunteer Stefani Dennis told CNN .

Once lured away from the marsh, the scared pup ran away before she was spotted again on last Monday, and reunited with her owner.

“Millie really likes food and she’ll eat anything you give her … raw carrots, cucumber – but she much prefers sausages,” her owner, Emma Oakes, told The Guardian.

“Meat is her favourite food, so dangling a sausage was probably the best thing they could lure her with.”