This Looks Like A Job For… Sausage? Rescuers Get Creative To Lure Lost Dog To Safety.

Millie the dog rescued by sausage drone

What’s that in the sky? It’s a bird! It’s a plane! On second thought… it’s a sausage?

It’s not every day that you see a drone flying around with a sausage on a string, but that’s exactly what curious bystanders saw on the shore of Hampshire in southern England. Animal rescuers were forced to get creative when a little dog named Millie wandered into dangerous territory and refused to leave.

Millie was out for a walk with her human one day when she slipped her collar and bolted. They called for help, and the volunteer organization Denmead Drone Search and Rescue came to lend a hand.

The Jack Russell terrier and whippet mix ran into a huge field of mud flats, areas that are known to flood during high tide, so time was of the essence. The coast guard was called in to assist in the dog’s recovery, along with firefighters and police.

Rescuers attempted to reach Millie by kayak and on foot, but she took off whenever they got close enough to grab her. After she’d gone two days with no food, a neighbor suggested frying up some sausages to lure the scared pup to safety.

After filling the air with the tantalizing aroma of cooking meat, rescuers tied a sausage to the end of a long string and attached it to the drone.

“The string was tied around the body of the drone and around the sausage to make it dangle around 2 or 3 meters [6.5-9.8 feet] – it was very hard to gauge how close you were to the ground but it worked somehow,” DDSAR volunteer Stefani Dennis said. “People were walking by and didn’t know what was going on, it was hilarious.”

The trick worked! The hungry dog began chasing the sausage as they dragged it away from the mud flats toward 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,” Stefani said.

Unfortunately, once Millie was safely off the flats, she kept running. She fled to an industrial site, but eventually her human was able to corner her. Her rescuers were so relieved!

“I think all of us cried, I was so thankful that she made it home,” Stefani added. “The way the community came together saved Millie.”

Incredibly, Millie was totally unharmed by this experience! We hope she got plenty of sausages for dinner that night as a reward for following her nose.

Watch Millie sniff out the way home in the video below, and don’t forget to share this story to lift someone’s spirits.

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