Six years after they started searching a Dunedin couple have not lost hope they will bring their beloved dogs home.
Otago Peninsula residents Louisa Andrew and Alan Furnell’s two pet dogs, Dice and Weed, went missing after darting out of the property’s gates in October 2019.
Since then, the pair sparked a nationwide search for their dogs and put up signs from Bluff to Kaitaia.
Ms Andrew said they still had leads on the whereabouts of their two dogs.
"I believe we’ll find them."
She said in November 2019, a contractor mowing lawns told the couple he had seen a white van at the Ocean View freedom camping park with two dogs who looked exactly like Dice and Weed leashed with a piece of string.
"He knew it was unusual, like, people travelling with dogs would have collars and leads."
That resulted in numerous people from all over New Zealand reporting the same thing.
"Incredibly, we got lots of actual sightings of the dogs with an older couple in a campervan."
She said many had sat on the information due to not being 100% sure or not wanting to get their hopes up, but she said the information have given them "so much clarity".
They believed the older couple picked Dice and Weed from the side of their street in 2019 and decided to keep them.
"They’ve been seen all over the country by a lot of people — it’s always the same description of the people, the same description of the dogs and the same campervan they describe," she said.
From descriptions given, the dogs were now quite overweight.
"Dice is fluffy now, he’s not cut short, and they look bigger because they’ve gotten fat ... that makes people doubt themselves a bit."
She urged anyone who thought they may have spotted the dogs to contact them rather than going on their own crusade.
"We don’t feel any bitterness or animosity, we’ve moved past that. We just want the dogs home."
She said they would never stop looking, despite people telling them it was futile.
"Anyone who knows me knows that when it comes to my animals, I’m never giving up — we’ve got so many people who’ve followed us from the beginning and they’ve helped us hugely.
"Nothing will stop me.
"I’d have to die, I think."
