A MOTHER has spoken of her outrage after a couple attempted to steal her family’s dog from their front garden.

Danielle Rooney of Bethania Road in Acrefair, said that her family were about to take their 7-month-old boxer puppy, Seren, for a walk on Saturday August 10, when a couple attempted to make off with the pet.

She explained how her husband Stephen Rooney was forced to chase after the pair in his car and was able to retrieve the dog before they got away.

She is now warning other residents to make sure you have an eye on your pet at all times, even when they appear to be in a safe place.

Mrs Rooney, 36, described how the events unfolded, saying: “My husband, children and I were preparing to take Seren for a walk at Erddig, and she was out in the front garden at the time while we were coming in and out to pack the car.

“She had wondered towards the edge of the driveway but not into the street, my husband had kept an eye on her.

“All of a sudden when he looked back at her, she had disappeared, and he thought she had wandered out of the garden and into the street, but when he went to look, she wasn’t there.

“Luckily our neighbour had seen the whole thing and shouted at us that a couple had just taken Seren and driven off in their car down the street, we looked and saw a silver car driving away.

“Immediately my husband jumped into his car and chased after them and fortunately for us he was able to catch them at the end of a street when they had to stop at a junction.

“He quickly got out of the car, went over to their window and asked them what on Earth they thought they were doing? The absolute cheek of them to steal our dog from our garden.

“Believe it or not the couple tried to claim that they thought Seren was lost, that they were retrieving him and would have called us when they got home.

“However, when Stephen brought Seren back, our neighbour had told us that couldn’t have been the case because she saw the couple pull up in the car, she said a woman quickly jumped out, grabbed Seren from the end of the driveway, before jumping back in the car and quickly pulling away again.”

Mrs Rooney went on to add that the neighbour caught the entire incident on CCTV, and that the footage has been passed onto police, who are looking into the incident.

She is now urging residents to be vigilant and always know exactly where their pets are at all times, in the hope that something like this doesn’t happen to anyone else.

She said: “My message to any pet owners out there is make sure you know where your pet is, always be keeping an eye on them, even if they’re in your garden and you think they’re safe because things like this can happen in broad daylight.

“We were very lucky on this occasion that our neighbour had seen the entire thing otherwise we would have never known what happened to Seren, we would have been checking in gardens and down the street to see where she had gone but we would have lost her.

“We’ve now got padlocks on our front gate because we’re scared that this kind of thing could happen again, that the same couple may come back for her.

“Seren is still only a puppy and she doesn’t know fear, she’s so friendly and willing to trust anyone. A lot of dogs are like that which can make them vulnerable to things like this.

“It makes me furious to think that someone would do that, they would happily try to take another person’s dog from their garden.

“Seren is a part of the family and if we had lost her, we would have been devastated, my kids would have been absolutely distraught.”