A FAMILY are “over the moon” after their missing pet dogs were found.

Maya and Rye were discovered not far from their home in Coombes Road, Lancing, from where they “suddenly disappeared” seven weeks ago.

Dragana Standing, 49, said her children were delighted and she thanked The Argus for help in the campaign to trace the beloved brindle lurchers.

We reported how devastated son Harry, nine, had been crying every night since the pets vanished from their garden on March 20.

The Argus:

But devastation turned to delight after a young boy out on his bike found the dogs.

Ms Standing said they rushed to collect them, adding: “We were all over the moon, laughing and crying at the same time in the car.

“Everybody was so happy, I wanted to hug the young boy and his dad but I couldn’t because of the virus. I’m still really emotional.”

The dogs disappeared from the family’s garden in Coombes Road three days before lockdown.

The Argus:

Ms Standing, who works as a carer for the elderly, discovered they had gone when she returned from work.

There followed seven weeks of frantic searching.

Then, out of the blue, the family received a call from the boy saying he had found the lurchers half a mile from their house near an entrance to a woodland area.

The boy, who discovered the dogs last Friday, found the family’s number on their collars.

Ms Standing said: “There was so much fencing, so perhaps they couldn’t find the right passage to come back home.

“The young boy who found them said he remembered seeing someone looking for greyhounds and called his dad. The dogs had been running so much on the road that one of them had bleeding on her paw.

“They’re a normal weight – however, they were slightly overweight before they went missing.”

The family initially feared the dogs may have been stolen but they said this was not the case.

In a thank you to Argus readers for helping find them, Ms Standing said: “Many people said to me they had seen the paper. Not everyone’s on Facebook or lives on the road to see the posters we put up but everyone sees the paper, so thank you.”