A dog owner has praised her local firefighters after her two year-old pet Domino got stuck in a drain-pipe after chasing a rabbit and needed rescuing.

Despite attempts by her owner Emily to dig out the Chihuahua-Jack Russell cross, they couldn’t reach her so they called the fire service.

The dramatic rescue took place on farmland in Blean on April 5 at about 8pm.

Crews tried to gently persuade the dog out by calling her, but when that didn’t work firefighters had to dig out the pipe.

They then used a saw to create a big enough gap in the plastic pipe to see if they could reach Domino.

Domino and the rabbit travelled about 50 metres along the pipe.

Canterbury fire crew manager Lee Divers said: "We created several trenches and cut away at the pipe, which was full of mud and silt.

"Once we’d created the holes we saw a pair of eyes appear and thought it was Domino – then out hopped the rabbit. But Domino wasn’t far behind."

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No stranger to animals, Domino’s owner Emily Firmin is the daughter of Peter Firmin - co-creator of children’s TV classic Bagpuss.

Emily is the young girl who owned the saggy cloth cat in the programme.

"We realise the fire service don’t normally do animal rescues like this, so we’re entirely grateful and we’ve made a donation to the Fire Fighters Charity as our way of saying thank you..." - Peter Firmin

She said: "The crew were amazing, I can’t thank them enough.

"We didn’t think we’d get her out of the pipe, but what they did was extensive and they were even able to pull the rabbit out too – you could call them magician firefighters."

"I’ve got nothing but praise and thanks for the crews – they were absolutely brilliant.

"I’m now going to be extra careful with Domino – I know how quick she is at chasing rabbits, I’ll be keeping her on the lead from now on."

Emily’s father Peter, who was on hand to help with the rescue, along with her partner Justin, said: "We realise the fire service don’t normally do animal rescues like this, so we’re entirely grateful and we’ve made a donation to the Fire Fighters Charity as our way of saying thank you."