Pippa is still missing her four puppies
A litter of puppies are still missing, a week after their stolen mum was returned to her owner.
Three-year-old cavalier king charles spaniel Pippa was pregnant with four cavoodle pups when she was stolen from her Omata home on Easter Monday.
The following Sunday, owner Margaret Joyce received a text from an unknown number saying they had Pippa and wished to return her. A few hours later Pippa arrived at the front door, but puppy-less.
‘‘We’ve had no lead on the puppies,’’ Joyce said.
Police were working to track the phone number that was used to return Pippa, and were still looking at home security footage from the night she was taken, she said.
It was touch and go for Pippa following her return, but she was recovering well.
‘‘Pippa was quite ill that first week,’’ she said. ‘‘In the first few days I wasn’t sure if we were out of the woods yet.’’
Pippa had put weight back on and was looking a lot better, but was quite clingy. ‘‘We can pretty safely say she’s going to be fine. And we’re definitely not letting her out of our sight.’’
Joyce believes Pippa was taken for her cavoodle pups, which are often hard to come by.
In recent years, poodle cross-breeds – which also include cavoodles, labradoodles and retrodoodles – have been up for sale on Trade Me with regular asking prices between $3000 and $6000.
‘‘We just need people to keep a lookout if in eight weeks they are for sale as there aren’t many available out there,’’ Joyce said.
A police media spokesperson said police were still making inquiries.