A BELOVED puppy stolen from a family home as they slept has been reunited with its delighted owners.

Skittles, a 15-week-old Shih Tzu, was discovered wandering around outside a Tesco Express store at midnight, four days after being taken during the burglary.

Eight-year-old Izzy Duffy, and her brother Alistair, six, were devastated when they found out Skittles had been taken from their home in Whitworth.

The pair screamed with delight when their father, Dr Chris Duffy, presented the children, and their mother Shona, with the healthy and happy little dog.

He said: “I let Skittles wake them both up as soon as I got her home and, when they realised what had happened, they started shouting ‘she’s back!’ We’re all so happy.”

A page was set up on Facebook to highlight the hunt for Skittles, and thousands of people ‘liked’ it and supported the search which ended in Rochdale.

Dr Duffy said: “A young lady called Samantha Hammond found Skittles alone and lost in the car park, a mile from our house, just after the shop closed.

“She took Skittles back to her house and saw the pictures of her all over Facebook, got our number off a poster and called us.

“I drove straight to her house and when I got there, Skittles was so excited to see me, and has such distinctive markings, I knew it was her.

“She seems absolutely fine and looked in good condition.

“I think because we’ve had so much publicity about it, the people who took her will have seen her as ‘too hot to handle’.”

On Monday night, or the early hours of Tuesday last week, burglars forced open a ground floor win-dow and took the Duffy’s mobile phones, wallets, games consoles, tablet computers, cameras, and a laptop, before stealing the puppy in its cage.

The family’s BMW X5 was also stolen, but it had very little fuel in follow-ing a family trip to Angl-esey and was dumped a mile from their home, in Tonacliffe Road.

DS Tom Edmondson said: “Thankfully, the family has been reunited with their puppy.

“However, this investigation is still very much ongoing.

“We are currently examining CCTV in the area of the Tesco store where the puppy was found and we are continuing to make inquiries.”

Anyone with information should call police on 101.