It's something no pet owner wants to experience.

A family dog, with little experience in the bush, goes missing in remote, rugged and very unfamiliar terrain on a camping trip.

To make things worse, the family had to search in heatwave conditions and brave smoke from backburning as firefighters battled bushfires nearby.

Kiah, an 18-month-old Rhodesian ridgeback from Sydney's northern beaches, ran off from her owner Chris Gamarra while he was camping in the Maragle State Forest, north-west of the Kosciuszko National Park.

Mr Gamarra searched day and night trying to find his family's beloved pet, but when he had no success, his partner Tina Lidden left their children with family in Sydney to join the search.

"He searched literally for three days, day and night. I think he was going to bed at 3:00[am] and waking up at 5:00[am] and just kept going in the hope that he would find her," Ms Lidden said.

"After day two of not getting her I went down, left our two little kids at home with [their] grandparents, thinking, 'This would be easy, we'll get her'."

When they didn't find her, Ms Lidden and Mr Gamarra feared the worst.

"Six days later we both realised that she was far gone; we didn't know where she was," Ms Lidden said.

"We had a dog tracker come up to see if he could smell her scent and locate her but that was unsuccessful because of the heat.

"And we had to come home on day six, come back to our kids. Chris just kept going back every weekend.

"It was the most awful feeling; we're seven hours away so it was seven hours both of us bawling our eyes out the whole way home.

"We didn't know if we were ever going to find her."

In the 17 days that Kiah was missing, a heatwave had gripped most of southern New South Wales and temperatures in and around the forest were as high as 40 degrees.

Out-of-control bushfires burned nearby, and the couple had to battle through smoke from nearby backburning operations.

"At some stages the smoke was so thick that we could barely see 1 metre in front of us," Ms Lidden said.

Found 'against the odds'

Kiah was eventually found in the state forest with the help of a canine friend. ( Supplied )

Before heading to the forest to take part in the search, Ms Lidden first looked to local social media for help.

"I joined the Tumbarumba local page and the people were so kind, they told me to share on other pages in the local area and it was shared all up over 6,000 times during the period that she was lost," she said.

It was that tactic that eventually led to a sighting from a local on her way to work.

"We camped out all day, we sat at a certain spot [where] we'd seen lead marks on the road and a lady had spotted her the day before when she was driving through the forest on her way to work.

"She'd said, 'I'm sure I've seen your dog, she ran away really fast, she was petrified but I'm sure I've seen her'.

"So we went to that spot, there were paw prints on the road, so we sat from 1:00pm to 10:00 at night."

In the end it was help from one of Kiah's canine friends from Sydney that led to a breakthrough, 17 days after she went missing.

"Some friends arrived and they've got a little dog that [Kiah] loves so we thought if we can get them down here maybe she'll come to this dog.

"So around 10:00pm, Chris was showing our friends around and he shines light into the blueberry bush and see eyes; [he] thought it was a fox.

"Then we heard the shake of her head and the jingle of a collar and I said, 'That's not a fox, that's Kiah'."

It took about an hour to coax a very scared Kiah out from her hiding spot but once she was close enough to her family she immediately returned to her old self, asking for a belly rub.

5 kilos lighter, but no worse for wear

Ms Lidden said Kiah was very tired, but otherwise in good spirits.

"For a dog that's spent most of its life in a house in Sydney, she did pretty well. She managed the events and was fine," Ms Lidden said.

A number of fires were burning near the Maragle State Forest, where Kiah was found. ( NSW Rural Fire Service: Fires Near Me app )

"She's in incredible nick, lost five kilos and is still a decent size, so she's obviously been catching rabbits or doing something to be able to survive so long.

"In the Maragle there are quite a few water sources so I'd say that she's found some and she's been drinking from there.

"So for a domesticated dog, she's only one and a half, she's done incredibly well."

And, unsurprisingly the whole family is ecstatic to have their pet home at last.

"I still can't believe it," Ms Lidden said.

"I was asleep this morning and I heard her budge through the dog door and I thought, 'Oh my god, it's her' and I started crying because she's in the backyard.

"We're all still in a bit of shock but it's such a relief to have her home."