A GIGGLESWICK family have been reunited with their missing dog, which they believe was kidnapped.

West Highland Terrier Jazz is now recovering at home after disappearing for over four weeks.

Owners Julie and Stephen Halstead, of Sandholme Drive, and their children Michaela, nine, and six-year-old Wade, were distraught when Jazz went missing. Julie said it completely spoiled the youngsters' summer holidays.

"The children were crying and could not sleep because they didn't know what had happened to her," she added.

"We then found out that a man had been seen putting Jazz into a white Maestro van on Cammock Lane."

Julie, who has another daughter Dana, six months, said Jazz went missing on July 20 after a delivery man left the back gate open.

"We went looking for her straight away and looked everywhere. We put loads of posters up and even offered a reward but never heard anything," she continued.

"Then, just the other week, we got a phone call from Townson Tractors. A man said he'd heard a Westie had been found up on the moors near Bentham and that a farmer had taken it in.

"When we found her she was in a real state. She didn't even recognise us at first.

"We took her to the vets in Settle who said by her condition she could have been trapped in a barn or ill-treated. She had to have her hair shaved off because it was in such a mess and possibly infested with fleas and she seemed very traumatised."

Julie added: "It had been four-and-a-half weeks and we had given up any hope of ever finding her after all that time. When she was kidnapped I couldn't believe people could be so cruel. Just to pick up a dog and then dump it on the moors is just horrible.

"We're just glad to have her back though."

Jazz is currently on a course of antibiotics and steroids and is recovering at home with her family.

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