Puppy survives 20-kilometre ride trapped in car’s engine

On Sunday, Betty Boop, a three-month-old Jack Russell terrier, escaped from her owner's yard in Greater Manchester, England — and then managed to get stuck on a plastic shelf inside the engine of a neighbour's Audi A4.

The car's owner, Gavin Juliette, then unknowingly drove his vehicle the roughly 20-kilometre round trip to pick up his mother-in-law with the dog trapped inside his car.

When he arrived home, he heard barking coming from the engine.

"All we could hear when we got back was this yapping," Juliette told the Manchester Evening News.

Juliette lifted up the hood of his car to find Betty Boop starting back at him.

Juliette called on the dog's owner, Gary James, who had been frantically searching for the missing canine, to help him dismantle the engine and free Betty Boop. The lucky pup emerged unscathed.

"We just couldn’t believe what had happened and it was even harder to believe how she’d survived. It's a good job Gavin wasn’t going to Blackpool or he'd have probably ended up with a hot dog," James told the Manchester Evening News.

"When I first saw her in there I thought she was bound to be injured or badly burned - but, apart from being covered in oil and a bit shaky, she was fine," he added. "Now she's completely back to normal and playing with the kids as if nothing happened. I’ll definitely be keeping the front gate locked from now on."

Juliette still doesn't understand how the dog survived the ordeal.

"It's not the smallest dog and I still can't quite work out how it managed to get itself there. It’s absolutely bizarre," he said.

"I still don’t get how it survived, with the heat in there and the fan spinning, but I'm just glad for Gary and his family it was a happy ending."