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Family distraught after pet movers lose dog at airport during interstate move

A family has been left heartbroken days before Christmas after an pet moving company lost their beloved dog outside Sydney airport.

Simba was due to follow his family from Narara to Toowoomba, but after the driver of Dogtainers, an animal transport company, attempted to reattach a dislodged water bowl, the four-year-old Spoodle “bit him” and bolted from the Virgin freight terminal.

“[The driver] reached in to get the water bowl and the dog bit him, he recoiled a bit and Simba bolted straight out of the crate and crossed the car park,” Dogtainer Pet Transport owner Errol Pearce told Yahoo7.

Mr Pearce said desperate attempts to recover Simba failed and he now feared the worst.

Simba's family is desperate to be reunited with their missing pup. Source: Facebook
Simba's family is desperate to be reunited with their missing pup. Source: Facebook

“Because it’s not micro-chipped, we are worried someone could take its collar off and say ‘we have a new pet dog now’,” Mr Pearce added.

“There’s no proof who owns it.”

A new military posting in Toowoomba meant Neala Boyd and her family were already due to embark on “stressful and draining” move, but with one of their two pets went missing, their 14-year-old son Brandon has been left distraught.

“He’s not coping very well,” Mrs Boyd said.

“He’s just left friends, family, school, our own private home that we have lived in... it’s put a bit of a downspin on everything.”

The 38-year-old mother said the pet carrier had offered to buy them a new pet, should they choose to go down that path and also offered to fly her down to Sydney to help search for Simba.

“That’s the hard thing, we can’t be helping search for the dog because we are 12, 13 hours away,” she added.

The pup was last seen sprinting away from the airport in Mascot. Source: Facebook
The pup was last seen sprinting away from the airport in Mascot. Source: Facebook

“The AFP (Australian Federal Police) can’t do anything because it wasn’t on airport grounds, if it was, it would have shut down everything.

Equally devastated by the loss, Mr Pearce said they took full responsibility for the missing pup and was now “just praying someone gets a hold of it”.

“We’ve never had this problem before... not in the 24 years I’ve been in this business,” he added.

Despite her devastation, Mrs Boyd praised the public for sharing Simba’s photo more than 3,000 times, in particular the efforts of “complete stranger” Ben Campbell who drove around looking for Simba and made a missing flyer.

If you have any information regarding Simba’s whereabouts, please head to Lost Dogs of NSW Facebook page to share.

Ben Campbell made a flyer urging residents to keep an eye out for Simba. Source: Facebook
Ben Campbell made a flyer urging residents to keep an eye out for Simba. Source: Facebook