A WINSFORD family has been reunited with a beloved pet dog thanks to an appeal in the Guardian.

Angela Taylor and her six children were distraught when their three-year-old miniature Jack Russell, Chip, went missing from their back garden in Alexandra Square shortly before Christmas.

Puppy Scrappy was also pining for her mum, so the Guardian ran an appeal, in the hope somebody would be able to reunite them.

It did not look good when Christmas and the New Year went by without news of Chip, but finally a Guardian reader saw the appeal and rang Angela with some good news.

Chip had been found tied to a tree, cold, frightened and abandoned, but Knutsford Animal Rescue had saved her.

The family was reunited with Chip later that day, much to Angela and her children's delight.

Angela said: "The kids are ecstatic. We are very grateful to the Guardian because without the appeal we would probably have never got her back."

However, Chip has been through the wars during her time away from home. She appears to have been kicked and needs a hernia operation.

Angela added: "We don't have much money and it is going to be difficult for us to fund the operation. I think whoever did this to her is really disgusting."

A spokesman for Knutsford Animal Rescue said: "Had she been tied up any longer, the chances are she would not have survived because of the cold.

"But she is a lovely little dog and if nobody had come forward I was quite tempted to keep her myself."

Chip is now safely back at home recovering from her ordeal, waiting for her operation and looking forward to a new year with her loving family.