TYTUS the Rottweiler failed to live up to his reputation when burglars broke into the garage he was guarding.

The six-year-old big softy ended up as part of the thieves' loot during the raid on the lock-up at Milton Common, near Thame.

Not that his owner Tracey Johnson, of Chalgrove, is too surprised. She said: "He made a lot of noise and looked fierce, but he was as gentle as a lamb, a great big woolly bear.

"He played tug of war with my two daughters and loved them. He wouldn't hurt them."

Now Stacie, 12, and Tiffany, eight, are deeply upset by Tytus's disappearance. Mrs Johnson and her husband Dale have put up a reward for the dog - and the tools and equipment they lost in the raid - of up to £1,000.

"The dog is the most important thing for us" said Mrs Johnson, 34, who is slowly recovering from life-threatening heart problems.

She said Tytus has been a guard-dog all his life and would make a fearsome racket when anyone approached. She thinks the raiders saw him through the glass door and stopped to chat to him, calm him down, perhaps feed him - and then he would have just walked round with them.

"They are in for a shock if they get him to their home.

"He has always been a guard dog, never house trained and doesn't know how to behave indoors.

"They could be in for a nightmare time."

The raid on the premises in Rycote Lane, Milton Common, cleaned out the garage of tools built up over many years when Mr Johnson, 36, was trading.

Hand and electric tools, air tools, a £3,000 steam cleaner, a moto-cross motor bike and an ex-works Kawasaki 1981 bike which cannot be replaced were all stolen.

They destroyed a £2,000 tool box trying to get to the tools inside.

Thame CID are appealing for help in tracing the raiders who broke in sometime between last dealing with the raid which happened last Thursday night and Friday morning and say the thieves must have had at large van with them.

The police are appealing for help and information from anyone who might have seen or heard anything.

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