Local students have been hailed as “good citizens” with a “heart of gold” for preventing a dognapping last month.

Local resident Kathy Cunningham’s dog Coco was victim of an attempted kidnapping on 16th November.

Cunningham tied her two dogs, named Coco and Chanel, to a lamp post outside Tesco on Acorn Road and “nipped in quickly”.

A group of students had seen Cunningham tie her dogs to the pole, and therefore knew the person who tried to take the dogs away was not the owner and so stepped in.

While in the shop, one of the students informed her son that “somebody had tried to take one of the dogs,” Cunningham said.

Nonetheless, she received criticism on social media for leaving her dogs tied outside the store. However, she said at the time she “felt safe leaving them there” as Coco, the male dog, would bark if he encountered anything distressing.

Cunningham has become more mindful of when and where she takes her dogs, but she praises Jesmond for being “very dog friendly”. She added that she “would never tie [her dogs to the pole] again”.

She said that while students often get negative press, “there are some wonderful students in Jesmond”, citing others who recently prevented a burglary.

“[I want to send a] big huge thank you to them, because I would have been heartbroken,” she added.

Tesco did not respond to a request for comment for this story.