Tin Can Bay dog owner reunited with stolen ashes found dumped in Brisbane northside street

A distraught woman who had all her belongings stolen while moving to Queensland to start a new life is overjoyed after a “pet detective’’ helped recover the ashes of her beloved dogs.

The two boxes of pet ashes dumped on the street.

A distraught woman who had all her belongings stolen while moving to Queensland to start a new life is overjoyed after a “pet detective’’ helped recover the ashes of her beloved dogs.

The traumatic saga began a month ago when Donna Brennan sold her business in South Australia after a family tragedy.

She packed up all her possessions in a van before heading off for Tin Can Bay, northeast of Gympie, to start a new life.

Fate intervened after she stopped for the night en route at a friend’s house in Albion in inner-north Brisbane on the Australia Day weekend.

She woke the next day to find thieves had cleared out the van, which did not have contents insurance.

However, it was the loss of two urns containing the ashes of her beloved “fur babies’’ that hurt the most.

“My two dogs (Tyson and Georgie Girl) were my babies. It was like my kids’ ashes were stolen from me,’’ she said.

Donna Brennan has been reunited with her dogs' ashes.

The thieves dumped the urns, which for unknown reasons ended up in Legyet St in Windsor on Tuesday, February 20.

That was when Windsor’s Lisa Donaldson stepped in to help solve the case of the missing owner of the two urns.

She spotted them about 6am on Tuesday while walking to work.

After returning later that day, she found the urns still there and took them home for safe keeping as it had started to rain.

Ms Donaldson called the biggest pet cremation company in Brisbane, Pets in Peace, who began a search of their database.

She also posted an appeal on a local community page and contacted police before a policewoman from the Hendra station, who lived locally, spotted Ms Donaldson’s post.

Somehow she put two and two together and worked out that the urns were taken from the delivery van, as Ms Brennan had reported all the stolen contents with police.

“I’m so glad this beautiful woman (Ms Donaldson) has helped me. I can’t say how happy I am, it’s made my day,’’ Ms Brennan said.

“That’s the power of Facebook — it joins the dots.’’

She has now settled in to her new life in Tin Can Bay but has had to re-build from the ground up with nothing except the ashes, which she would collect from Ms Donaldson this weekend.

One of the boxes of ashes.

One of the boxes of ashes.

Ms Donaldson said she decided to take action because she realised the ashes meant a lot to the owner.

“Dogs are part of the family. If it was me (who had lost the ashes) I’d be absolutely distraught, so I decided to do everything I can to get them back to their owner,’’ she said.

“I contacted Pets in Peace but they told me they’ve changed to a new database and have to go back through an old database which covers the period when these dogs died.

Tyson died in 2020, aged 16, while Georgie Girl died the year before, aged 14.

One of the boxes of ashes.

Ms Donaldson said the box of ashes contained a photo of a small breed of dog and a heartfelt note which read: “My beautiful soul (mate) Georgie Girl.

“Thank you for being in my life. You’re so brave for someone so small.

“I will always love you and miss you every day.’’

Ms Donaldson said she walked the same route to work nearly every day and the two boxes were not there before Tuesday.

She said unit complexes across the street near a train station were often targeted by thieves, so she assumed the boxes were dropped after the van was robbed.

CCTV showed occupants of a 4WD making three trips to rob a car and Ms Brennan’s van.

Police are still investigating.