Yappy days! Stolen prize Chihuahuas worth £32,000 are FOUND abandoned in portable dog cage 130 miles away and are reunited with their ecstatic owners

The five stolen dogs were found in Culcheth, Cheshire

Xena was named Best Puppy in Breed at Crufts 2014 last month

She was snatched with four other dogs from a house in East Yorkshire

They include Xena's grandmother Angel and mother Io



Xena is worth £20,000 while the others are worth £3,000 each



Five stolen chihuahuas including a Crufts champion worth £20,000 have been reunited with their owners after being found 130 miles from home.

Valenchino Chihuahua Xena, who was named Best Puppy in Breed at Crufts 2014, was snatched with four other dogs from a house in Bridlington, East Yorkshire, on Thursday.

After a nationwide hunt was launched to track them down they were finally found in a portable dog cage in Culcheth, Cheshire.



Back home: Xena was named Best Puppy in Breed at last month's Crufts and is worth £20,000

Unhurt: Xena may have been targeted for breeding because her puppies would be worth thousands of pounds

Owners Mal Hilton and his partner Lucy Hilton were left devastated by the theft of Xena, her grandmother Angel and her mother Io, as well as two others called Pandora and Evie.

Last night the Hiltons told of their relief when they heard the prized pets had been found unhurt, but 'traumatised'.

Mr Hilton said: 'We've not slept since the burglary - fearing we'd never see them again. Our kids cried non-stop.'

Mrs Hilton told The Sun: 'We'll never leave them again.'

The dogs were found in Cheshire, 130 miles away from their home in Bridlington, East Yorkshire

Expensive: Xena's mother Io is worth £3,000 and was one of five chihuahuas stolen in the raid

The grandmother of Crufts champion Xena, Angel, who was also stolen by the thieves in East Yorkshire Jogger Mark McCombe, 29, heard them barking by a farm track and took them home. He then rang police. The raiders broke into the Hiltons' house in the village of Lissett, near Driffield, by smashing a window with an iron bar. Xena is worth £20,000 while the others are worth £3,000 each. Fourteen-month-old fawn longcoat Xena, whose show name is Valenchino Made of Candy, has won at many shows but her crowning glory was being named Best Puppy in Breed at Crufts last month. She has also qualified for Crufts 2015. Humberside Police said investigations will continue.

Mystery: Pandora, a Russian tri smooth coat, one of the chihuahuas stolen in the raid in Yorkshire