Lucy the Dachshund rescued from New Forest badger sett after five days (From This is Hampshire)

Lucy the Dachshund rescued from New Forest badger sett after five days

11:24am Monday 2nd November 2009

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SHE was only doing what came naturally to her.

But Lucy the Dachshund’s instincts nearly got the better of her when she disappeared during a walk in the New Forest.

Instead of flushing out her intended quarry, the sausage dog got herself wedged eight feet down a badger sett.

She emerged with a whimper six days later after being unearthed by a mechanical digger in a delicate three-hour rescue operation.

Owners John and Janet West, who had feared the worst, watched on in amazement.

“I just couldn’t believe my eyes,” said Janet, 60.

“I saw this little nose pop out. She shook her head and crawled out of the hole.

“She squealed at us and her tail started wagging straight away.”

The five-yearold hound went missing when she ran off on to headland while the Wests were taking a stroll with their dogs.

“I caught up with her mother who was sitting at the entrance to a freshly dug badger sett. She had a worried look on her face,”

John said.

The couple grew increasingly concerned when Lucy failed to emerge after hours of shouting and hollering and alerted the fire service.

The fire service and Forestry Commission obtained special licences from Natural England to twice check the sett at Heavens Gate, Shoot Wood.

Animal rescue specialist Anton Phillips used listening equipment and a snake eye camera to examine the network of tunnels but could find no sign of Lucy.

The Wests even tried to coax her out by laying hot tripe at the entrance to tunnels.

Then on the fifth day of their daily visits to the sett Mr West, 58, detected a faint whimper using a listening probe made with a plastic funnel and pipe.

“The whimper kept repeating itself. At first I thought I was imaging it, but then I realised it was for real,” he said. “It was such a relief.”

The fire service were then able get permission to carefully dig her out of the badger sett the following morning.

Echo locating equipment was used to pinpoint Lucy’s position and nearby Turf Croft Farm supplied a mini-digger to unearth her from a chamber eight feet down.

Lucy spent a day sleeping off her ordeal and other than a bald head from her burrowing she was declared healthy by the vet.

It is not the first time Lucy has got stuck in a hole – she once darted down a rabbit hole after a cloud burst – but John managed to pluck her out by hand.

The Wests, who run a guest house in Burley, praised Lucy’s rescuers as “amazing” and will be making a donation to Hampshire Fire and Rescue’s Animal Rescue Team as a token of thanks.

Watch manager Mr Philips said: “I think they were very lucky to get their dog back. She was extremely resilient.”

He said badgers have been known to kill dogs that enter their lairs and warned that pet animals can become potentially dangerous when trapped and their owners should call rescue specialists.

The name “dachshund” comes from German and literally means “badger dog”.

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