Joy Joyce with four-year-old PippaAN elderly woman from Melksham breathed a sigh of relief after her missing £1,000 show dog was reunited with its puppies.

Joy Joyce, 81, of New Lawns, believes her four-year-old Pomeranian bitch Pippa was stolen and then dumped.

She was separated from her puppies for 36 hours and Mrs Joyce feared the worse for the little dog, which is insured for £1,000 and has won every show she has entered in the past four years.

She said: "I let my dogs out at about 11pm. When I looked around the other dogs had come back in but I noticed Pippa had not. "I went outside and called and put the floodlights on but there was no sign of her."

Together with a friend she searched the neighbourhood and then phoned the police.

With the help of neighbours she searched for Pippa all the following day and put up posters around town.

She found a small gap under her garden fence and believes Pippa was either pulled or coaxed under it.

On Monday morning Mrs Joyce was phoned by a nurse living in St Michael's Court, who had returned from work on Saturday morning to find Pippa cowering behind a flowerpot. A neighbour had spotted her being dropped off by a car of young men.