Family reunited with stolen Shih Tzu
A Queens family was finally reunited with their pilfered pooch on Wednesday.
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“I’m so happy! I’m so relieved!” Doris Campos, 25, exclaimed Wednesday moments after learning that her family’s beloved 2-year-old Shih Tzu named Chula was coming home.
Chula was playing outside the family’s Corona home on 37th Avenue near 97th Street when a young woman picked up the dog at 8:20 a.m. Friday and left with the white pup cradled in her arms.
The incident was captured on the family’s home surveillance footage.
The family, including a 5-year-old boy, was left shattered after thinking that Chula had been stolen by a heartless dog-napper.
But on Wednesday Campos and her husband, Miguel Penaranda, 27, said they received a phone call from the mother of the woman who took the dog after she saw dog flyers that Campos and Penaranda had put up around the neighborhood.
Penaranda said the mother claimed that her daughter did not steal the dog and thought the pooch was a stray out on the street.
Surveillance footage of the incident shows Chula, who was not wearing a collar, outside of the family’s gate when the dog was taken.
The dog was returned at a nearby precinct stationhouse.
“She should have knocked on our door or taken her to a shelter. But she ran,” Campos said of the woman who took the dog.
Police said it was still under investigation.