A PENSIONER has been reunited with her disabled pet terrier after thieves stole her car... while the dog sat quietly in the back.

Olga Lynas parked her Vauxhall Cavalier outside her home in Kirkbymoorside on Saturday night.

But when she returned moments later the car and two-year-old Flash were gone. Mrs Lynas said she was distraught when she realised what had happened to her dog, who lost the use of his front legs after a stroke when he was a puppy.

She said: "I was absolutely beside myself, I didn't know what to do to find Flash."

Almost three hours, later police found the car abandoned less than a mile away from her home.

Police believe the thieves were forced to dump the car after the clutch failed.

The Cavalier's back windows had been smashed and the car was stuck in boggy ground on a grass verge outside the village.

But tiny Flash was found shivering on the roadside. Mrs Lynas said: "I was so worried about him I didn't care about the car. They had taken him out and dumped him on the verge.

"If he had been left lying out in the cold until morning he would have perished."

Mrs Lynas said PC Andy Marsden found her pet, who is unable to walk without the aid of a trolley.

She said: "The policeman brought him back and it was wonderful.

"I can't thank him enough, he was so kind and did his utmost to find Flash."

Mrs Lynas said: "If the people who took Flash had left him in the car and set it on fire or something it would have been awful."

Updated: 14:12 Wednesday, March 20, 2002