UPDATE: Nala has now been reunited with her owner after being found near Totton. 

A DOG owner from Wimborne says she has been left devastated after one of her beloved pets was apparently stolen from her car.

Emma Davies, 21, said that her one-year-old saluki-cross lurcher was taken from her Land Rover while it was parked at Haskins Garden Centre at Longham on Sunday afternoon between around 1.30 and 3.30pm.

Emma, a stable hand from Wimborne, said that the dog, Nala, was left in the ventilated Land Rover Defender with nine-year-old male collie, Bailey, while Emma, her finance Andrew Delgado, 32, and his daughter Phoebe, seven, met family for lunch.

Bailey was not stolen and nothing else was taken.

Emma said: “It’s just devastating, I don’t know why anybody would do this. The car was locked and they were sound asleep when we left; we came back and could see that the car had been forced into with another key or someone had picked the lock.

“Nala is such a lovely dog, she is a really funny character, but she panics if you get angry with her and then runs away, so I’m terrified to think what might have happened to her. We are heartbroken, it’s still not really sunk in what’s happened and I’m numb from the shock of it.”

Emma rescued Nala from a shelter after her litter of puppies was abandoned at one week old and Nala has been part of Emma’s home since she was eight weeks old.

She added: “I’ve have been with her her whole life as far as she can probably remember and she will be so frightened. If there was any concern for them overheating and they took her out of the car it wouldn’t make sense, because surely they would have found us by now and they would have taken Bailey too.

“Our car was fully ventilated and the only reason we didn’t take them home before going for lunch is because Nala gets awful separation anxiety and we thought they would be safe in a locked car, which was cool and kept in the shade.

“Bailey is a bit traumatised by it I think, because he is very quiet and subdued around us all, if only we could see through his eyes for those few hours we were away.

“We haven’t really been given any help from police so far, the shopping centre won’t give us access to CCTV because that’s down to police to investigate, but we are growing frantic just waiting to find out what is happening and don’t know what to do.”

Nala is completely white except for two brown patches over both her eyes, with the patch on her right eye being the biggest, she is microchipped and has been spayed.

Dorset Police confirmed that it was investigating. Anyone with information should contact 101, quoting reference 24:276. A Facebook page has also been set up to help track Nala down.