Heartless dog thieves threw four Chihuahua puppies out of a moving van after raiding a dog breeder's Bromley home last night.
But five other Chihuahuas, including four more pups, as well as a pug and a shi-tzu puppy, are still missing.
Horrified Louise Harley, 31, found the discarded pups by the side of the road after chasing the red van whose occupants had broken into her kennels at about 9pm, while their mother – who Louise believes somehow escaped from the crooks – was “like a nervous wreck” today.
“I’m absolutely sick,” Louise told the Standard. “It’s horrible. They’re my pets, at the end of the day, and I don’t know where they are or how they’re being looked after.”
She believes the puppies, which had not been weaned, were thrown out of the van’s back door because without their mother they would be unable to feed. She found them, still in their cage, in the middle of the road moments after giving chase.
Louise said she was alerted to the break-in by barking and shouting and looked outside to see two men in their 20s passing cages to a woman over her garden fence.
She ran outside to discover two of her kennels – both locked – had been forced open.
“They sped off but they threw the four puppies out the van up the road," she said. "We recovered them and found their mum cowering inside. She was so shaken up.”
Louise, of Orpington, was the victim of a previous dog theft eight years ago.
“I just think [the thieves] are disgusting,” she added. “I’m worried about the dogs’ wellbeing and the stress it’s going to put them under.”
All the dogs were microchipped. Louise said she would offer a “large reward” for any information that led to their safe recovery.
Detectives urge anyone with information about the theft to contact DS Miles Fuller at the Bromley police by calling the Met on 101 - or phone Crimestoppers anonymously on 0800 555111.
