Sausage attached to drone to successfully lure dog to safety

Millie, a Jack Russell-Whippet had resisted efforts by police, firefighters, and coastguard members to bring her back to safety from the mudflats that would soon be submerged by the incoming tide. As the situation became more desperate, the rescuers had to get creative and decided to attach a sausage with a rope to a drone to lure the dog to safety.

The scent of meat was too hard to resist for Millie and she followed the sausage that was attached to the drone to safety. The Jack Russell-Whippet was soon reunited with her relieved owner, The Guardian reports.

Chris Taylor, the chair of the Denmead Drone Search and Rescue team agreed that, “it was a crazy idea.”

However, the rescuers decided to press ahead with the idea after checking Civil Aviation Authority regulations and running the numbers on the aircraft’s maximum takeoff weight to find out if they could safely attach a sausage to their drone.

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

And, as you might expect, Millie took the bait and followed the airborne sausage to safety to be reunited with her owner, Emma Oakes.

“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,” said Taylor. “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.”

DJI Mavic 2 Pro drone used to dangle sausage

Based on the photos, it seems that DJI Mavic 2 Pro drones were used during this creative rescue mission.

Let us know what your thoughts are on this rescue mission in the comments below. If you are interested in learning more about how drones are used for good, you can read more here on DroneXL.

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