Owners Get Back 2 of 4 Stolen Bulldog Pups

Zach and Bugsy were safely back home Thursday night. But the whereabouts of Huera and Piglet--the other two English bulldog pups stolen from a Van Nuys family earlier this month--were still unknown.

“Whoever stole them I guess had a change of heart,” Amanda Heredia, owner of the dogs, said about the robbers who returned the four puppies to a Pacoima park.

Two were found there and the other two apparently were stolen again.

On Dec. 3, thieves broke in through the backdoor of the Heredia house in the 5800 block of Noble Avenue and made off with Zach, a valuable pedigreed English bulldog.

Heredia said she promised Michael, her 4-year-old son, that she would get Zach back. She thinks the same robbers returned a few days later and snatched the other three pups.

Thursday morning she got a call at work in Santa Monica from a teenage boy who said he had seen a television broadcast and recognized the dogs from the park.

Heredia rushed to pick up her son Michael and the two retrieved Bugsy and Zach--who had been left in the park by two boys.

A park employee said the other two dogs had also been at the park earlier, Heredia said.

“She gave me a description and everything,” she said.

The park employee said she put all four dogs in a pen to hold them. But when she returned from picking up some preschoolers, the females Huera and Piglet were gone again, the park employee reported.

Bugsy was in good shape back home, but Zach seemed depressed, Heredia said.

“He’s a very sensitive dog,” she said of Zach. “He just lays there and looks like he’s dying.”