A very English story of peril and rescue comes to us now from Nottinghamshire, where a man’s terrier was stuck underground for 2 days after getting lost in a badger warren.
Cello is a 6-year-old parson Russell terrier, and he was out walking with his owner Stephen Smith, the BBC reports, when he decided, as he’d often done before, to let the curious pooch off his leash to explore a field.
This time, however, Cello became overly-interested in the network of tunnels dug by these large mustelids. Venturing within, Cello quickly got turned around, lost, and stuck, leaving Smith to call for help.
“I took him and one of his friends out for a walk and they disappeared. After a while, the other dog came back, but Cello didn’t, so I went searching for him. The other dog helped me locate where he was,” Smith told the BBC.
Volunteers from Notts Lost Dog (short for Nottinghamshire) were on the case, as were the local fire department, but they first had to obtain a license from the government-sponsored public welfare organization Natural England to dig into the badger warren.
For American readers raising an eyebrow at this last sentence, badgers are a protected species in the UK and disturbing their burrows without a permit is punishable at about half the severity of an American who hunts a bald eagle: up to 6 months in prison and a fine with no ceiling.
Notts Lost Dog’s Kim Jefcott said she was anxious that a permit might not be secured in time.
“It was very worrying because we didn’t know whether it was an active badger [warren],” she told the BBC. “Lots of things go through your mind. Badgers are very protective and can be aggressive if they feel threatened, so we were concerned for Cello’s safety.”
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The permit was issued just in time for the rescue team, along with assistance from Natural England, to locate Cello using a camera and dig a shaft 2 feet down into the network of tunnels to extract him.
Jefcott said he was clearly stressed, and his eyes were sore from getting dirt in them, and from staring into the dark.
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It wasn’t long after breathing the free air again that Cello perked up, and showed the rescue team what a well-behaved and “lovely, friendly little dog” he is.
Smith added that after eating and drinking—and sleeping 24 hours straight—Cello is back to his normal self again. He still enjoys walks in the fields off his leash, but will hopefully have learned from his ordeal to steer well clear of the smell of badgers.
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