Drone Saves Dog From Drowning, With a Twist

Police officers, firefighters and other rescuers failed to wrangle an escaped dog, eventually spotted on dangerous tidal flats in Havant, England, over two days last week. "It began to look perilous for Millie the jack russell-whippet cross" who'd escaped from her owner during a walk on Jan. 13. Then a drone pilot came up with a rather genius idea, as the Guardian reports. Rescuers had launched drones to track the timid 3-year-old rescue dog on Saturday, but the pilot suggested attaching some bait, per the BBC. "One of the local residents on the beach where we were flying from supplied us with the sausages," Chris Taylor, chair of the Denmead Drone Search and Rescue team, tells the Guardian. "The woman cooked them up for us and we attached them with string."

"It was a crazy idea" and a "last resort, as we couldn't reach her by kayak or any other means," says Taylor. But it worked. Once Millie caught sight of the dangling sausage, she tailed it 300 yards to the edge of the mudflats, per the BBC. "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," Taylor says. After eating half the sausage, however, Millie ran off again before being spotted inland two days later, per the BBC. Seeing her owner's father, the dog jumped into his arms, per the Guardian. "Relief just poured over me," says owner Emma Oakes. "It was just absolutely fantastic to have her home." Taylor, meanwhile, says he now has a new strategy for dealing with similar situations. (More uplifting news stories.)