Are they nametagged? If not that's why, axolotls aren't like cows or chickens since they will actually despawn once you get too far away from them unless they're nametagged. It's an intentional feature to not make finding axolotls extremely difficult
Iron golems can't be put into a mount position (using a minecart, horse, pig or boat) without commands so this can't be replicated in survival gameplay for one thing
Have you checked that the portals are actually linked properly? Since the slimes are probably despawning but you're thinking that they're going through the portals