A black cocker spaniel from Salford was within moments of dying after being caught in a wire snare.
Three-year-old Bobby disappeared while running across moorland near Hebden Bridge in West Yorkshire in July.
Owner Justin Gregg found the pup tangled in a wire snare, one of three set up in a popular animal trail in a wooded copse.
“I was lucky to find him so fast and cut the snare off him as the wire was getting tighter and tighter,” said Justin, a former game warden.
Thankfully Bobby has made a full recovery since the scare, but his owner says the device could have badly injured or even killed him.
“I know how lethal these snares can be, and they will trap anything that runs into them – not just the target species of foxes and rabbits.”
Justin has now joined a League Against Cruel Sports campaign for an outright ban on the lethal traps.
The charity says an alarming rise in the number of family pets getting caught in snares is behind the campaign.
Around 1.7m animals are caught by the metal traps each year – they are usually intended for foxes and rabbits, but two out of every three animals caught are unintended victims like dogs and cats.
Tom Quinn, Director of Campaigns for the League Against Cruel Sports, said: “Snares are cruel and extremely dangerous, not least because once they are set, there is no real way of knowing which animals will be caught in them.
“All animals caught in these primitive devices suffer terribly.
“Although they are meant to be a restraining device rather than a lethal trap, in many instances the animals suffer a slow and painful death from strangulation, evisceration, exposure to the elements, predation, starvation or dehydration.”
