A LITTLE girl who saved her pocket money for two years to buy her own puppy has been left distraught after the dog was stolen.

Margaret Callow, aged seven, had saved money from every birthday and Christmas and had spent months doing chores so her parents would let her have her own dog.

But Poppy, her four-month-old cocker spaniel, was snatched from the family’s home near Laddingford, near Maidstone, on Tuesday, January 9.

Her mother Rebecca Callow, said: “She has gone from being a fairly resilient little girl to being totally devastated. She came home from school and when we told her she just started howling.

“The news actually made her sick. Now she says she has no reason to get up in the morning.”

Mrs Callow, an accountant, returned to her home in Claygate Road, at about 2.30pm, on Tuesday, to find that Poppy was missing from her kennel in the back garden.

The kennel had been padlocked shut, but whoever took the dog had ripped its doors off to get in.

Her mother added: “She had wanted one for so long and had saved all her pocket money, all her birthday money and Christmas money and the little bits she made from doing jobs for people, ever since she was five years old.

“It has affected the whole family. We can’t eat, we can’t sleep, we are so worried. We just want our puppy back.”

Poppy is a liver and white cocker spaniel with a full tail. She is still on three puppy feeds a day and, because of her age, cannot be left alone for long.

Mrs Callow has put dozens of posters up around Laddingford, Collier Street, Yalding and Hunton, and hopes the publicity may make Poppy unsaleable.

She has also posted information about the theft on www.DogLost.co.uk – a website that helps reunite lost and stolen dogs with their owners. Poppy was microchipped, which may make her even harder to sell.

Anyone with information about Poppy should contact Mid Kent police’s area crime management unit, on 01622 604180 or Crimestoppers, anonymously, on 0800 555 111.

You can also post any information on www.DogLost.co.uk