Owner reveals how her beloved rescue dog, who was missing for 12 days, was found in the woods thanks to a thermal drone
A dog that had run away from home was found in a nearby forest after 12 days after the family used a thermal drone to locate it.
Ulysse went missing on December 20 while walking in Houghton Conquest, Bedfordshire, and his owner Sam Boyle never gave up hope of finding him.
Speaking on Good Morning Britain, she explained that she had seen a thermal drone in use on Facebook, which gave her the idea to contact Nottinghamshire-based charity Drone to Home to help with the search.
After just two hours, Ulysse was found stuck in a hedge, with his retractable lead tangled in branches, meaning he could not free himself.
Sam said: “I was obsessed with trying to find him, I saw something on Facebook and I thought I needed a drone.
‘So I contacted Drone to Home, who initially said that because he fled the scene, he would eventually make his way back home under his own power. We really thought he would try to move back home. I didn’t want to think he did that. caught up.’
Sam revealed the rescue dog was ‘very wary of people’ and ‘terrified of traffic’ before running away.
She added: ‘The thought of him hiding and coming out at night was probably the best-case scenario for him.
‘When Phill called me and said, “We can see him on camera”, I said, “Is he still alive?”, but of course that was because they picked up a heat source from him.’
Ulysse had lost 10kg and required veterinary treatment after living on a diet of sticks and twigs.
Sam is now raising money to invest in more thermal drones to find missing dogs, cats and even people.
She said: ‘The fundraising has gone crazy, we asked for £12,000 and we are already at £15,000.’
Ulysse went missing on December 20 while walking in Houghton Conquest, Bedfordshire, and his owner Sam Boyle never gave up on finding him.
After just two hours of searching, Ulysse was found stuck in a hedge, with his retractable lead tangled causing him to be trapped and unable to free himself.
Ulysse had lost 10kg and required veterinary treatment after appearing to survive on a diet of sticks and twigs
On the GoFundMe page, Sam wrote: ‘This couldn’t and wouldn’t have happened without an all-weather thermal drone and the expertise of some amazing people and charities.
‘Canine Capture UK CIC with their invaluable skills mapping and pinning areas on maps where they predicted Ulysse might be, and Drone to Home who traveled from Nottinghamshire on New Year’s Eve and within a few hours used the information from Canine Capture UK CIC and their First-hand experience showed Ulysse deep in a hedge, with his Flexi-lead tangled and twisted around the branches.
“If it had been a few hours later, this story really would have had a completely different ending.”