A family are over the moon after they found their missing dog thanks to the help of hundreds of kind-hearted strangers.

Rosie Pearson, 42, was left distraught when her four-year-old border terrier Pippa escaped from her garden in Compasses Road, Pattiswick at about 2pm last Monday.

The stay-at-home mum-of-two believed that the golden coloured canine might have been picked up by someone because she had not been seen since.

More than 650 people shared her search on social media and complete strangers even spent hours out of the day looking for Pippa in fields around Pattiswick, Coggeshall and Greenstead Green.

Mrs Pearson said: “I was in the house having lunch with the children and I thought the dog was in the house too but my daughter had let her out without my knowing.

“I only had my back turned for 10 minutes.

“She had bitten a hole in the gence and then wandered off. We noticed she had gone and instantly went out to look for her.”

See Thursday's Braintree and Witham Times for the full story.