A dog rescued from a puppy farm went missing for two weeks after being bundled in to a car after she was spooked while on a walk.

The Sackett family were frantic after Jessie, a red cocker spaniel slipped her collar and ran off across Thornton Heath High Street  up Grange Park Road and on to Buller Road on February 23.

The petrified pooch who had only been adopted by the family six months earlier after she was rescued by Battersea Dogs Home was witnessed being picked up off the pavement and put in to a Renault Megane as Peter Sackett frantically searched for her.

Peter and his parents George and Pip, who were away for the weekend when Jessie went missing, took to social media to get help finding Jessie.

Both Peter and George spent days and nights pounding the streets and putting up hundreds of posters appealing for three-and-a-half-year-old Jessie’s safe return.

They received dozens of calls and four sightings; the last of a dog matching Jessie’s description running down the road at Spa Hill near the Harvester pub.

The dog had escaped her captor  but was now frightened and living rough.  The break through finally came when  a young boy on Whitehorse Road saw the dog distressed and asked an adult for help. Luckily the man was an off duty police officer and managed to catch Jessie and reunite her with her owners and the family’s other dog Poppy, a whippet, who had desperately missed her.

Despite her ordeal Jessie, who was already extremely timid and nervous  because of her experience at the puppy farm where she was kept in a cage and used as a breeding machine, she was unhurt.

Pip said:  “We are so grateful to get her back. We were so desperately worried especially because of what she has already one through. Fortunately it hasn’t set her back too much. She really is the most adorable loving dog.”

A number of dogs have gone missing in the locality in recent months but it appears to be the work of opportunists rather than a dog napping ring.

A French Bulldog puppy called Que was stolen from a front garden in Grange Road on March 17 but also has been returned.

A male black Poodle called Boo missing since December 15 from Beulah Crescent still hasn’t been found.