Dog left stranded makes 17,000km journey home
A Canberra woman, living in London, has been reunited with her pet dog after he was left stranded by a grounded Malaysia Airlines flight.
Timothy the Maltese terrier was forced to spend a night in Alice Springs last week after the flight from Sydney to Kuala Lumpur was forced into an emergency landing due to technical reasons.
The pup was meant to go from Kuala Lumpur to London, where his family was relocating, but he became stranded in Alice Springs alongside more than 200 passengers, the ABC reports.
His owner, Susan Merrell, who was travelling with her family on a different airline, said she was worried “he’d just been left in a hold crate on the runway with no access to food or water”.
Pet Flyers owner Peter Melville, who organised Timothy’s journey, said a lot of international flights normally have pets on them and it’s normal for them to travel alone.
“Sometimes they fly better than people,” Mr Melville said.
“It depends on their personality though but pets don’t normally suffer from jetlag in the same way people do.”
Mr Melville said he organised the dog to fly with Malaysia Airlines again because “it would have taken longer to re-book”.
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However, even once on board the flight, Timothy’s travel headaches continued.
He missed his connecting flight to Kuala Lumpur after arriving a day late and his immigration papers were left on the original plane in Alice Springs.
But after 17,000km of travel, Timothy is finally back with his owner.
"He was actually quite emotional, he was shaking, he was crying and yelping, but I think overall he was just really excited to see us and we were to see him too," Ms Merrell said.
