Rescuers Save Dog From Rising Tide After Attaching Sausage to Drone

Millie, a Jack Russell-Whippet mix, was rescued last week after being ushered to safety by a drone with a sausage attached to it, The Guardian reports. 

The incident in the town of Havant, Hampshire in England started when Millie slipped her lead and was later seen on the mudflats with a rapidly rising tide. When a coordinated effort involving police, firefighters, and volunteers to try and encourage her to seek higher ground was unsuccessful, all seemed lost until a drone pilot had the unusual suggestion of using the appeal of a savory sausage to draw her out of harm’s way. 

“One of the local residents on the beach where we were flying from supplied us with the sausages – I think they were from Aldi,” said Chris Taylor, chair of the Denmead Drone Search and Rescue team. “The woman cooked them up for us and we attached them with string.” 

A hungry Millie took the bait, and was lured to a safe spot where she could be rescued. “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 said. “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.” 

While Taylor said he would consider using a similar approach for future dog-related rescues, her owner Emma Oakes admits that the ingenuity of attaching a sausage to a drone was especially appealing in this particular circumstance. “Millie really likes food and she’ll eat anything you give her … raw carrots, cucumber – but she much prefers sausages,” Oakes said. “Meat is her favorite food, so dangling a sausage was probably the best thing they could lure her with.”