A DEVASTATED family have launched a desperate appeal after their beloved £1,000 pug was snatched from their garden on Sunday.

Disabled mum-of-two Julie Hesketh left four-month-old Marvin alone in her garden for just ten minutes but, when she went to give him his dinner, he was gone.

“I felt gutted, absolutely devastated,” said Julie.

“There’s no way he could have got out of my back garden.

“I felt so helpless. What can you do?”

Julie, of Winding Way, Salisbury, bought the pedigree pup only a month ago, but said he was already part of the family.

She said her seven-year-old daughter Katelyn, who called him Mini Marvin, kept crying.

“If anyone knows anything, there are two little girls here that are really upset,” said Julie, who has a neurological condition called Friedreich’s Ataxia and has been using a wheelchair for eight years. “It’s not about the money, he’s a family pet.”

Despite being in a wheelchair Julie took to the streets, calling for Marvin and shaking his food bowl to try to get him to come home.

But there was no sign of him anywhere.

She suspects someone got into her garden through an empty property behind her house, believing no one was in.

An appeal on Facebook has been shared thousands of times by people all over the country, but so far Julie has heard nothing.

Now she is warning other dog owners in the area to be on their guard.

“If they will do this to a disabled person then they’ll do it to anyone,” she said.

Marvin was wearing a blue collar with silver bones on and a blue harness when he went missing between 4.30pm and 4.45pm on Sunday afternoon.

He has been microchipped.

Police are appealing for witnesses and are asking for anyone with information to contact 101 or Crimestoppers on 0800 555 111.