Air Canada lost a dog in San Francisco on Monday when it escaped after an employee let the Italian greyhound out of its cage.

The airline made the situation worse when Air Canada’s manager of corporate communications appeared to callously dismiss the incident in an email that was meant to be internal.

“I guess I’m the poster child now for Be Careful With Email,” Peter Fitzpatrick glumly told the Toronto Star.

Fitzpatrick’s emailed response, sent in frustration, landed instead on the computer of a CBS13 television reporter in the United States who wanted answers about the incident and Air Canada’s policy on safeguarding pets.

The original email, with the subject heading marked “urgent,” was sent by reporter Maria Medina to a public relations official in Vancouver on Thursday asking about the incident.

Angela Mah responded quickly with a statement, describing the incident and search efforts by both cargo and airport staff.

The reporter wrote back to Mah shortly after with follow-up questions and added that she would like them answered for her story at 10 p.m.

Mah asked Fitzpatrick for his advice in Toronto. By this time, Fitzpatrick had grown exasperated with the reporter’s email because the airline didn’t have the answers.

“We didn’t ignore them. It wasn’t like we didn’t respond,” Fitzpatrick said. “We’d given them our statement and there really wasn’t more to say.”

In his response, intended for Mah, Fitzpatrick said: “I think I would just ignore, it is local news doing a story on a lost dog. Their entire government is shut down and about to default and this is how the U.S. media spends its time.”

Fitzpatrick, a veteran public relations official, told the Star that he regretted this email, but to suggest he was callous or uncaring is “an unfair portrayal.”

He said the email was partly meant to be a joke, but he was exasperated with the line of questioning that he had no answers to.

The dog, a 2-year-old Italian greyhound named Larry, was placed in a cage and was scheduled to be shipped to Victoria, B.C., from San Francisco. However, the flight was cancelled and rescheduled for later in the day.

In the meantime, the Air Canada employee let the dog out for a washroom break or a walk (this part is not clear), when it either slipped off its collar or broke away.

The greyhound, known for its speed, is still on the loose and it’s going on five days. The last reported sighting was 5 kilometres from San Francisco airport.

Jutta Kulic, 58, a retired Italian Greyhound breeder from Medina, Ohio, brought the Italian greyhound with her by car en route to a dog show in Sacramento, Calif. (Larry was not to be part of the show).

Kulic was honouring the wish of a friend, who passed away from cancer, by promising to find a good home for Larry.

They found that home in Campbell River, B.C., where a married couple had arranged to take Larry. The dog was to be flown from San Francisco to Victoria, with a connecting flight through Vancouver.

Kulic said she left specific instructions not to unseal the four plastic ties on the cage. She explained that the dog had fully absorbent material in his carrier and had a dog bed, so there was no reason to let the dog out for “a washroom break” or for a walk.

The greyhound also had food and water.

“He was exercised when I got to the airport,” she added. “The dog was not in there very long. This animal should never have been taken out of his crate. Animals are transported far greater distances over much longer periods of time and left in there for their safety.”

Duncan White, who with his wife, Lynda, owns three other Italian greyhounds in Campbell River, said he is devastated that their hopes of adding to their family seem dashed.

One of their older greyhounds had passed away and they were looking for a “rescue-type” dog.

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“It was something that didn’t need to happen,” he said. “We were at the airport in Victoria when Jutta called me and said the flight was being delayed. So we turned around and went home.”

They got the crushing news on the drive home when Kulic phoned them around 6 p.m. Vancouver time. “I was very upset,” he said.

White fears the worst.

Greyhounds are “sight hounds,” he said, and if they see something across the road that interests them, they’re “just going to go for it and don’t care what’s in the way.”

He said “these greyhounds can run 25 miles (40 km) an hour like nothing. You never catch them.”

There was no purchase fee for the dog, but White agreed to pay the transportation costs. Kulic has paid those costs and White was to reimburse her.

How those costs will now be recovered has not been discussed. It’s too early to talk about money, Kulic said.

“Right now my No. 1 concern is Larry,” she said. “Then we’ll see what Air Canada’s response is.”

Kulic has posted a $2,500 reward for the safe return of Larry. She has also been in contact with veterinarian and animal-welfare groups in San Francisco to help find the dog.

She said the latest reports are that Larry may have been hit by a car on a freeway, but it’s not known if he was merely stunned or slightly injured.

She has reason to believe from witness reports that somebody may have placed the dog in the car and driven off.

Meanwhile, Fitzpatrick said he’s a dog owner himself and wasn’t trying to dismiss the urgency of the incident.

“We try to take care of animals really well because we ship a lot of them,” Fitzpatrick said.

However, he regrets the fact that the story from the CBS13 reporter “makes us look like we don’t care.”

“We actually have gone to a lot of effort (to locate the dog). It’s a big city and it’s a fast dog, so it’s going to take time. Our people in San Francisco are sickened by this.”

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