Mayor Ordered To Return Stolen Dog

McALLEN, Texas (AP) – A judge in Alice has ordered the town’s former mayor to return the Shih Tzu that neighbors had left with her to dogsit last summer.

Grace Saenz-Lopez had called the neighbors a day after they left to say that Puddles had died and was buried in her yard. Three months later, a relative of the neighbors saw Puddles, which Saenz-Lopez had renamed Panchito, at a dog groomer.

Homero Canales, the attorney for Saenz-Lopez, said District Judge Richard Terrell ordered his client to return the dog to Shelly Cavazos and Rudy Gutierrez in a brief civil trial Thursday morning.

Canales said of his client, “all Grace Lopez did was save the dog’s life.”

Criminal charges are still pending against Saenz-Lopez.

(Copyright 2008 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)