Cello spent two days underground. The rescue team waited, watched and dug carefully

Cello had been underground for two days when Stephen Smith heard him bark from inside a badger sett in Hoveringham, Nottinghamshire. Smith had taken the six-year-old Parson Russell Terrier for a walk on 17 August and let him off the lead to explore a field. One dog came back. Cello disappeared into the tunnels. 1

Smith searched until the other dog helped him locate the sett. Then he sat beside it, listening for Cello. The waiting stretched into a second day. Smith later told the BBC that he barely slept and had little appetite while he tried to work out how to get his dog out. 1

The rescue needed patience before it needed force.

A badger sett is a network of tunnels, and the rescue team had to work around the animals that made it. Volunteers from Notts Lost Dogs, crews from Newark Fire Station, Natural England and police were involved. The team needed a licence from Natural England before anyone could dig near the sett, because badgers are protected and disturbing their tunnels can put the animals and the structure at risk. 1

Kim Jefcott from Notts Lost Dogs said the permit created an anxious pause. The team could hear Cello barking, so everyone knew he was alive, but the rescuers still had to wait for permission to reach him. Jefcott said she was prepared to stay all night to keep him company if the licence did not arrive in time. 1

That detail gives the story its shape. The people at the sett could hear an answer from underground, yet the safest response involved waiting, checking, and resisting the temptation to dig straight down.

Once the licence arrived, the team used an inspection camera to locate Cello. The camera showed his eyes in the dark. The rescuers then dug at an angle, because a straight shaft could have caused the tunnel to collapse around him. They reached him about 60 centimetres, or two feet, below the surface. 1

The rescue scene carried all the signs of careful work: shovels, protective clothing, a camera, and people crouched close to the ground. Cello came out alive and was reunited with Smith. A photograph from the BBC report shows a firefighter kneeling beside him while Smith sits nearby, still close enough to reach his dog. 1

Cello was dehydrated and hungry. He slept for about 24 hours, then returned to his usual self and wanted to go for another walk, according to Smith's account in the BBC report. Jefcott said Cello had sore eyes from spending two days underground, but he was wagging his tail and remained the friendly dog the team recognized. 1

I keep coming back to the scale of the effort. Cello was a small dog in a large tangle of tunnels, and the people looking for him had to combine local knowledge, emergency equipment, wildlife protection and plain persistence. The rescue took time because the team made room for every responsibility at the site: the badgers, the fragile sett, the worried owner and the dog still barking below them.

The Good News Network published its account of Cello's rescue on 4 September 2026, drawing on the BBC report and the photographs supplied to it. 2 The happy ending came when Cello reached daylight. The part worth carrying into the morning is everything that made that moment possible: people listened, waited for the right permission, and stayed until the barking stopped coming from underground.