Shiba capturado tras 48 de fuga en aeropuerto

She spent two days lost at the busy Calgary International Airport and took a bath in a de-icing pond but now 10-month-old Ayumi is on her way home.



The Shiba Inu puppy got loose Monday night on a tarmac after the two halves of her kennel split apart while it was being unloaded from a plane.

The purebred, which weighs about seven kilograms, led ground crew on a chase for several hours before the search was called off on account of darkness.

The dog's owner, Margaret Yee, who saw the escape unfold, was "very, very relieved" Wednesday to learn of Ayumi's capture.

"She's our fur baby," said the 27-year-old Yee, a Hamilton, Ont., bookkeeper who is set to be married Saturday in Kerrobert, Sask. She and her fiance flew into Calgary on a WestJet flight from Hamilton and had a one-hour layover before connecting to Saskatoon.

Yee watched from inside the terminal at around 9 p.m. as a baggage handler lifted the kennel by its handle off a conveyor belt and placed it into a baggage cart. Moments later, she saw Ayumi hit the ground running, with ground crew in pursuit.

"I felt very helpless having to stand there and look out the windows, watching them get further and further away from the terminal trying to chase her," Yee recalled.

Staff from the airport and the airline spent the next two days looking for the dog, and were rewarded for their efforts Wednesday around 5:15 p.m. when an airport employee spotted Ay umi near the terminal building. WestJet spokesman Robert Palmer said the staff then formed "a posse" with seven trucks and cornered the dog at a security fence about 45 minutes later.

Palmer said Ayumi appeared scared, tired and hungry, and was favouring one of her hind legs, but was otherwise in good shape. However, it appears the dog took a dip in a pond at the airport that holds recycled deicing fluid, so WestJet booked a checkup with a vet at the airline's expense.

It's still unclear what caused the dog's kennel to separate in the first place. Yee said the plastic carrier was "fairly new," and that it appeared to "wiggle" under the dog's weight when it was lifted off the conveyor belt used to unload the plane.

Palmer suspects either the kennel's latches were defective, or that a piece of luggage shifted during the flight and somehow unlocked the latches.

Calgary veterinarian Danny Joffe said the incident highlights the need for pet owners to carefully inspect and test their animals' kennels before putting them on a plane, and to spend whatever is necessary to get a quality product.

"Like most things, in a lot of instances, you get what you pay for," said Joffe, medical director at C.A.R.E. Centre Animal Hospital. "If the plastic looks weak and easily bends, or the metal isn't a high gauge, then I would certainly pay a little more to get one that's secure."

WestJet plans to heed the vet's advice as it made preparations to fly Ayumi back to Saskatoon to be reunited with her owners.

"We're just looking for a kennel she won't freak out in," said Palmer.

Palmer recalled just two incidents in his two years with WestJet where customers' pets, both cats, ran away at airports after their carriers broke. One in Winnipeg disappeared for good, while the other, which escaped in Toronto, was eventually corralled.