April 22 (UPI) — A dog who went missing at the Melbourne Airport in Australia was reunited with his owner in Wales after a 17-day search.
The dog, named Milo, had been due to travel home to Swansea, Wales, with owner Jason Whatnall when the canine escaped from the custody of AeroPets Animal Transport.
A 17-day search of the area was launched, and there were multiple sightings reported, but Milo always fled before he could be caught.
“He’s had a ball — he was chasing rabbits, playing with the kangaroos around Tullamarine,” Whatnall told 7News. “He had a massive adventure. Last little trip around Australia before jetting off to the U.K.”
Animal rescuer Nigel Williamson shared video showing the moment Milo finally walked into a humane trap set up by a local charity group.
Whatnall said his reunion with Milo at Heathrow Airport was emotional for them both.
“He was squealing like a little cheeky boy he is — he couldn’t stop. It was great,” Whatnall said.
Alligator rescued after six months trapped in drainage pipe
April 24 (UPI) — A wildlife rescuer in South Carolina came to the rescue of an alligator found to have been trapped in a drainage pipe for nearly six months.
Matt Kraycar of K&K Wildlife Services said he was summoned by Port Royal Plantation security in Hilton Head when the gator was spotted trapped underneath a grate.
Kraycar said the alligator apparently became stuck while swimming through the pipe in October and had been trapped ever since.
“Well they can go into brumation, which is basically like hibernation for reptiles,” Kraycar told WTOC-TV. “So as it gets cooler, they’re going to shut their body down. So by doing that, he doesn’t really need to eat as much as he typically would during the summer, and I’m sure there were still fish and turtles coming through those pipes as well, so it didn’t look like he was starving by any means.”
He said the reptile had minor injuries including a chaffed snout from rubbing up against the grate, but will make a full recovery in the wild.
Firefighters rescue poodle trapped under kitchen
Firefighters called in a search and rescue team for help recovering a poodle who found himself trapped under the kitchen in a home “of non-standard construction.”
The Mid and West Wales Fire and Rescue Service said in a news release that the 3-year-old poodle, named Jock, was trapped underground when crews arrived.
Firefighters did not explain how Jock ended up underneath the home, but noted it was a “domestic dwelling of non-standard construction.”
The Wales Urban Search and Rescue Team was brought in to help with the rescue, and the group used listening and seismic detection equipment to determine the canine was underneath the kitchen.
Firefighters removed patio slabs from the yard so a tunnel could be started and “a second access point was created through the property’s kitchen floor.”
Jock was successfully extracted and reunited with his owner. He was not injured.
