Scaling the roof of a house to evade police might be the thought of a fugitive - but you might not think it would cross the mind of a sheep.
However this week, a sheep and three lambs being pursued by officers showed their guile by clambering up the tiled roof of a two-storey property in Cumbria.
The foursome were being chased after escaping a farmer’s field - but managed to avoid capture by climbing onto a lower section of the roof at the rear of the property, before reaching the top.
Amused firefighters then arrived to rescue the animals, not before taking a picture of them looking down from up high.
A crew from Penrith Fire Station used ladders and reaching poles to safely bring down the sheep, which were later returned to the field where they came from.
"We are called to a lot of animal rescues, but sheep on a roof was a first," fire station manager Darren Wright told BBC Radio Cumbria.
"We couldn't fathom out why there would be sheep in that area in the first place and how they even got on the roof - there was a lot of confusion.
"It all became apparent when we realised the roof at the rear of the property went down near the ground and the sheep had used it to get away from the police."
The picture of the sheep on the roof was shared by Penrith Fire Station on its Facebook page, attracting many light-hearted comments.
Linda Hebson wrote: “Ewe turned a baaaa'd situation into a good one.”
Rob McWilliams wrote: “I've never herd of this before!” And Jonny Wills wrote: “Baaarilliant rescue.”
The rescue comes just days after a bull was rescued in Birmingham after it escaped from an abattoir. The animal has since been given a new home by an animal sanctuary.
Data from 2020/21 showed Cumbria Fire and Rescue Service was called to 49 animal rescues. Across England, 5,159 animal rescue incidents were logged by fire services in the same period.
The highest number of incidents involved a trapped pet, followed by rescuing pets from a height.
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