How awfull and distressing for the owners,fancy having to identify your dog rotting in a field so many days after after having it pts when you have already got the ashes back of your dog.
Looks like they dumped/lost the dogs less than a third of the way back to their HQ as Ripley is clearly along their route back from Hucknall (North of Nottingham). The burglary idea sounds inventive, though not too likely in my opinion. If it was a genuine mistake they should have admitted it up front.
This undermines pet cremation completely and won't be good news for other pet cremators.
ets How likely is it that burglars took the dogs bodies and then coincidentally dumped them miles away, way back towards where they were picked up from?
The other thiing that struck me was that £120 seemed a lot of money for the cremation. When I had our old GSD pts last year the charge was £60 for individual cremation.