Volunteers Find Lost Dachshund After 36-Hour Motorway Escape

When Mabel the dachshund slipped her collar at a motorway service station and bolted toward oncoming traffic, her owner Lucy Rogers thought she'd never see her pet again.

The two-year-old dog sparked a massive search effort on Friday after escaping at Leigh Delamare services near Chippenham. Rogers and her partner Jordan Goss, both 23, had stopped during their house move from Suffolk to Somerset when disaster struck.

"I pretty much blacked out. I was just screaming," Rogers recalled. Goss chased Mabel along the hard shoulder of the M4, but the terrified dog had entered fight-or-flight mode and wouldn't respond to her owners.

Several motorists pulled over to help, but Mabel disappeared from view. The couple spent the entire day searching nearby fields and roads with no success.

That's when volunteers from DroneSAR for Lost Dogs stepped in. The charity deployed thermal imaging drones to scan the countryside through the night, covering areas impossible to search on foot in darkness.

The breakthrough came Saturday morning when Mabel was spotted near a livery yard in Kington St Michael, north of Chippenham. After another full day of tracking, volunteers guided Rogers by phone across a waterlogged field Saturday night.

Mabel had settled into a hedgerow, exhausted from her 36-hour adventure. Rogers got down on the ground and whispered Mabel's favorite words: "Would you like some breakfast?"

She threw chicken treats on the ground, but Mabel ran straight past the food. The dachshund leapt onto Rogers, licking her face and going "crazy" with joy at being reunited.

Sunny's Take

This rescue showcases the quiet network of volunteers who drop everything to help strangers find their lost pets. Caroline Coward, the DroneSAR volunteer who guided Rogers during the final moments, said the pressure was intense given how close Mabel had come to the motorway.

"You never know what the outcome is going to be," Coward explained. But when it works, "it makes it all worthwhile."

Rogers credits the volunteers with saving Mabel's life, calling the rescue "literally a miracle." The technology and determination that brought Mabel home safely shows how communities rally around animal lovers in crisis, turning what could have been a tragedy into a story of hope.

For one young dachshund and her relieved owners, home is finally where the heart is.