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Toffee, the one-year-old hamster, managed to survive for more than a week on the run after breaking out of her cage in Beeston.

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Her nine-day adventure saw Toffee not only shrug off some wet and chilly autumnal weather, but an attack from a gang of airborne scallies – better known as magpies.

Relieved owner Kate Aspell said: "She was found by a lady who lives not far away. She said when she spotted Toffee she was on her hind legs, being harassed by the magpies, but she was giving as good as she was getting.

"She certainly seems to be made of tough stuff."

Toffee's rescuer had gone to the lengths of writing out notes to say she had found a hamster, posting them through the letterboxes of nearby homes.

"It was lovely of her to do that. She had gone to quite a lot of effort," Kate, 26, said.

The pet's big expedition began when the door of her cage was accidentally left open at her home in Sunnyview Terrace.

Spotting an exit route, she made a beeline for the back of the washing
machine, from where she was able to squeeze into the outhouse.

From there, she was only a small scurry to freedom.

It seems the Great Escape was a re-run of a previous plan, as Kate explained, Toffee had used a similar route during an earlier bid to reach the great outdoors.

She said: "She has got as far as the outhouse once before, we only found her then because she had fallen into a watering can and we could hear her scratching."

Kate, who works at the University of Leeds, is busy setting up a dream home in Farsley with fiancé Chris Brady.

She said the couple's packed schedule and the fact Toffee had been gone for so long meant they had begun to lose hope.

But she added: "I am so pleased to have her back, I can hardly believe it. That cage door will be staying firmly shut from now on."