He believes the pair may have been stolen after he returned home to his East Dubbo residence on August 1 to find his gate wide open and two dogs gone.

Mr Nolan said Diesel, a seven-year-old dane mastiff cross, and Milo, a two-and-a-half-year-old Jack Russell fox terrier cross, were dearly missed by their family.

"I've had them both since pups," he said.

"I've actually had Diesel longer than I've known my partner and the kids.

"It's so hard to grasp that they are not there. Sometimes I still wake up and go out the back to feed them.

"We have since bought another little dog for the kids but it will never replace the ones that are missing."

While he could not be sure the incidents were linked, Mr Nolan said Diesel had baled up and grabbed hold of a backyard intruder about a month before his disappearance.

"I can't think why someone would knock them off," he said.

"Diesel is really big, maybe someone thought he could fight. You hear a lot about dogs being stolen to fight and hunt, maybe it's just rumours, I don't know."

Mr Nolan said he had done everything he could think of to try to find his four-legged friends.

In the weeks that followed he went out looking for the dogs.

"I must have covered every street in and around Dubbo," he said.

Mr Nolan's partner also travelled to Geurie to search there.

"In the first month I was at the pound just about every day hoping to hear news," he said.

"They have been really good both there and in Narromine, they have been letting me know if they have any dogs that match the description."

He also placed alerts on social media and in store windows with pictures of the dogs in an effort to find them.

"A lot of people have been so helpful, from the people who've let us put the leaflets in the store windows to the people looking out for them," he said.

"We've offered a reward for the dogs' return and a friend has offered to match it.

"One lady we'd never even met before travelled around just looking for them. She wouldn't even let me give her any money for petrol."

Mr Nolan also placed some of his jumpers on the ground hoping the dogs would recognise his scent and return home.

Meanwhile he was alarmed by the number of dogs he discovered out on the streets while looking for his own missing animals.

"I must have picked up 20 or more," he said.

Mr Nolan said he hoped because the pair of dogs were such an unusual couple, being of such different size and appearance, anyone who saw them together might remember.

"And I want people to know if they do find them, they shouldn't be afraid, Diesel is big but he won't hurt you. And the little one is a real sook. Diesel is big and black but he has a distinctive white diamond on the back of his neck, a real one of a kind to look at."

Mr Nolan said anyone who stole his dogs or was holding onto them without trying to return them to their rightful owner "obviously has no respect for animals".

"If I found who stole them, I would just like to ask them, 'Why did you do it?'," he said.

"It's upsetting but you have to try to go on.

"You do hear stories of people getting their dogs back months after they went missing. When do you stop hoping?"