A dog has been rescued from a badger sett after being trapped underground for over two days.
Firefighters in Leicestershire, U.K., rescued the dog with the help of the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (RSPCA).
Images taken by Leicestershire Fire and Rescue Service (LFRS) showed the dog, a spaniel named Winston, being dug out by rescue workers with the service on Tuesday.
"The last few days had been awful," owner Helen Peake told BBC News. "We felt so helpless knowing Winston was trapped."
Winston got stuck in an underground burrow dug by a badger, known as a sett.
Helen Peake and fellow owner Alex Peake said they had called for Winston to come back for hours before getting so concerned they called the authorities for help in rescuing him.
Badgers and their setts are protected in the U.K. under the 1992 Protection of Badgers Act. Any intervention in a badger set needs special permission from the government agency Natural England, who advised the fire service to wait at least two days before disturbing the sett.
The fire and rescue workers were only able to intervene after 48 hours had passed under the rules.
LFRS said in a statement about the rescue they had responded to a call about a dog trapped in a badger sett for more than 60 hours.
The fire service said in an initial update on their intervention: "Crews were mobilized with specialist listening and locating devices ... The sound of dog has been located and more resources have been requested to assist with digging to release the dog."
LFRS later confirmed they had rescued the dog who was passed back to his owners and RSPCA officers. They said the badger setts seemed to be inactive.
"When the firefighters began searching we really thought we had already lost him and we were mentally preparing ourselves for the worst," Helen Peake said. "I just burst into more tears when we finally saw his little face poking out of the mud."
Photos released by the LFRS showed Winston covered in mud next to the fire rescue crew after they pulled him out of the burrow.
"The moment he was finally rescued was just brilliant—we were all just over the moon and despite his ordeal he was relatively unscathed," Peake said.
Uncommon Knowledge
Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.
Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.
