'Pet detective': Thermal drone pilot tracks down 330 missing dogs - and reunites them with their owners

A Yorkshire woman has helped reunite hundreds of lost pups with their worried owners, all without taking a penny for her work.

Erica Hart got her first drone - a DJI Phantom - as a present from her dad, Eric, in April 2018. After practising with it, he told her a local schnauzer had gone missing on a walk, and suggested she use her drone to help find it.

Using her drone, she manage to tracked down the pup, and reunited him with their owner. The South Yorkshire woman said word spread, and it "snowballed" from there. She has since been on 330 dog rescue missions with her drone - and even kept a few of the dogs she had found. Ms Hart doesn't accept money for her work, but she told SWNS it was all worth it when she saw the look on their owner's face.

"I get called out every day. Since I started out, I have found 330 dogs - some have made it and some haven't," she said. "I don't just help find dogs though - I have found, cats, emus, cows and helped mountain rescue locate missing people."

Ms Hart said she started out by flying model airplanes, before her dad bought her a drone. She has now gone through 30 of them on her pet search and rescue missions. She said she was currently saving for a new drone- an Autel Evo 4n - which has night vision and a thermal camera, to help with nighttime rescues.

He rescue missions have run for as long as 12 days, and she was even out on Christmas and New Year's Day. But she said she has no regrets

"I do everything for the love of dogs," she said. "Imagine not seeing your mum for 10 years and then seeing her all of a sudden - it is that feeling. It is like winning the lottery when I find a dog."

She knew just how much people's dogs could mean to them, and she had seen large men "burst into tears" being reunited with their pup. Her mission to find lost animals was also personal, she said, with eight dogs of her own - four of them rescues.

"I have a sausage dog called Brenda - someone posted on Facebook that she was missing. I found her but the owner didn't want her back," Ms Hart said. "I have two Shih Tzus called Bella and Fudge. The owners handed them over to me and said they were just going to let them go in a field... [and] I have a cockapoo called Shadow who was handed over to me by police. They are the most loving dogs ever."