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A heartless soul stole 7-year-old Mia Bendrat’s dog on Christmas Eve — scooping him off the sidewalk in front of a store in Manhattan where her owner’s left him tied.

Fortunately, a good-hearted one was out there, too.

Tina Cohen, a teacher, saw a man a couple of neighborhoods away trying to sell a dog on the street, circumstances that made her suspicious. She purchased the dog from him and, on Christmas day, returned the dog to the owners.

New York City police arrested the alleged thief, who they say took the Cavalier King Charles spaniel, named Marley, from outside a shop in Manhattan’s Washington Heights neighborhood, all under the eye of a surveillance camera.

“Thank you, the people of Washington Heights … Those great Samaritans… And now we got him on Christmas Day,” Mia’s mother Angie Estrada told WABC-TV.

Cohen, a high school Spanish teacher came across a man on Monday in another section of Manhattan standing on a street corner and yelling that he had a dog for sale.

“I said that’s not right. I said I’d like to buy the dog. I only have $100,” Cohen said.

When the man demanded more cash, Cohen went to a nearby Staples, bought some merchandise with her credit card, then returned it for cash.

She paid $200 for Marley and took him straight to a veterinarian, where he was identified through his microchip.

On Tuesday Cohen watched Marley jump into Mia’s arms.

“You guys belong together,” she said. “I’m so happy you are together.”

No word on whether Cohen got her $200 back, but — in the event Santa is listening, and maybe is willing to make a return trip — we’d say she deserves that and much more.

When Abby wandered off from her home in Fairbanks, Alaska, during a snowstorm, her family held out only a little hope.

Abby was 8-years-old. Temperatures were dipping to 40 degrees below zero. And Abby was blind.

But a little hope turned out to be enough.

Seven days later, after walking 10 miles to the edge of a local musher’s dog yard, Abby, a brown-and-white mixed breed rescued from a shelter as a pup, was found and returned to her owners, The Fairbanks Daily News-Miner reported.

“It’s a miracle, there’s no other words to describe it,” said McKenzie Grapengeter, who has three sons under the age of 10.  “We never expected to have her to be returned safe and alive.”

Musher and veterinarian Mark May said he came across the dog while running his team on Dec. 19, but didn’t stop to pick her up. The next day, the dog showed up at May’s house.

May said the dog had no signs of frostbite. “No frozen ears, no frozen toes, she’ll probably go back home and it’ll (be) business as usual. She’s no worse for wear but quite an adventure,” he said.

“We’re so, so grateful…” Grapengeter said, calling Abby’s return “the most amazing Christmas gift we could ever ask for.”

With December just around the corner, brace yourself for some doggie Christmas miracle stories.

Dogs, of course, do amazing things all year round, but there’s a tendency this time of year for those stories to get told more often, and generally in a somewhat breathless and hyped up way that gives Christmas, rather than smart dogs, all the credit.

While we’ll hold off on proclaiming it a miracle, how this little dog survived a house fire in Tennessee is pretty amazing.

Abigail apparently took shelter in a crawl space beneath the floor, and, though the house was 90 percent consumed by flames, managed to survive long enough to be pulled out by a firefighter.

“You never see a house that has fully burned to the ground — and 90 percent of the home is gone, I mean it’s up in smoke –- and something lived,” firefighter Pat Boone told News Channel 11

Boone, who pulled the dog out, said firefighters were calling her Miracle, until they learned her name was Abigail.

Her owners, who lost everything else in the fire, were thankful that Abigail was found. “Houses can be replaced, clothes can be replaced; family and animals can’t,” one family member said.

Boone said community members are stepping forward to help the family. An anonymous donor is covering all of the veterinary expenses for Abigail, who’s expected to be fine.

Chevy, the dog that survived a 110-mile journey last week in the engine compartment of a Chevrolet Silverado, is up for adoption at the San Clemente/Dana Point Animal Shelter in California.

And the contractor who pulled him out of the car engine is among those interested in taking him home.

No owner has come forward to claim the 25-pound mixed breed, said Kim Cholodenko, the shelter’s general manager.

Adoption applications are available at petprojectfoundation.org or at the shelter, which plans to review all of them before making a decision.

Applicants will be asked to visit the shelter, and bring any dog they have, to ensure that Chevy’s new home is a better fit than the last place he was found hanging out — under the hood of a pick-up truck.

Jaime Magaña, a building-restoration supervisor from Chino, found the dog under his hood after driving from Chino to Orange to Camp Pendleton to San Clemente on Oct. 1. When he parked at McDonald’s and turned off the engine, he could feel movement. Stepping outside, he saw some fur and opened his hood.

Chevy, as he’s been named, was uninjured, just a little scared and thirsty.

“He’s doing great,” Cholodenko told the Orange County Register. “He’s just such a good-natured dog.”

Magaña, 52, voiced interest in adopting Chevy, but the shelter says it plans to review multiple applicants before picking a new home for Chevy, who they say is a Keeshond-Tibetan spaniel mix.

To contact the San Clemente/Dana Point Animal Shelter, call 949-492-1617.

The dog who took an 11-mile ride stuck in the grill of a car has been reclaimed by her family.

On Tuesday evening, a family from Dighton family was reunited with Suzie, who had been missing for nearly two weeks.

Animal control officers had dubbed the dog Lucky after she was struck by a Toyota Camry Sept. 20, became wedged in its grill and was and transported 11 miles across Rhode Island before the driver stopped.

The dog’s journey ended when the driver stopped at the East Providence Police Department, where officers and animal control personnel removed her from the front of the car.

“Thing’s as happy as can be. It’s fine,” said the dog’s owner, who asked not to be identified. “My daughter loves the dog to death … she was wicked upset when we lost it and wicked happy when we found it,” he told the Taunton Daily Gazette.

A family pet for the past six years, Suzie escaped their enclosed yard in Dighton on Sept. 20 by digging under the fence.

“Dog digs like a backhoe,” the owner said.

The owners learned about Suzie’s story after her story of survival spread across the country on Monday and Tuesday.

“One of my buddies called me on the phone. He caught the 11 o’clock news on T.V., and he said, ‘Hey, I think your dog’s on T.V.’”

As if having a broken pelvis, fractured jaw and being shot with a BB gun weren’t enough, a stray dog in Memphis somehow managed to get her head embarassingly and dangerously stuck in a plastic jug.

Spotted earlier this month in a wooded area off Interstate 41, with her head encased in the clear plastic jug, the pit bull mix was photographed by Beth Gresham, who posted the photo on her Facebook page.

“We have to get her,” Gresham told her animal-loving friends. “She’s doesn’t have a whole lot of time with that over her head.” About 20 people joined in searching for the dog.

The next day the dog was caught by Chester Burns, according to news reports.

“I seen him coming down pathway with the jug on his head,” said Burns.

Burns said he cornered the dog against a fence with his Jeep. He used wire cutters to cut the plastic jug and remove it from the dog’s head. The dog has been named Miracle.

Jesse Sidle, an animal hospital technician, said that Miracle ate heartily once the jug was removed — consuming dog food, cat food and a rotisserie chicken. She was 27.7 pounds and she should weight around 45, said Sidle.

X-rays showed the dog had a broken pelvis and fractured jaw, that she may have been hit by a car and she carried pellets from having been hit by BB gun fire.

So far, Miracle, who is being fostered by Sidle, has gained five pounds.

Sidle is bringing the dog to work with her at the clinic every day.

Donations to her care can be made to The Memphis Humane Society at 935 Farm Road Memphis, TN 38134, or online at www.memphishumane.org.

Here’s a CNN report on the dog.

A year has passed since a starving pit bull was put in a plastic bag, dropped down a trash chute and found in a garbage bin at a high-rise apartment complex in Newark.

Just look at him now.

Dubbed Patrick — in honor of St. Patrick’s Day — he defied all the odds.

One year later, he’s looking healthy and happy — though a custody battle is still raging over him.

Meanwhile, his former owner, who turned down a plea deal, is scheduled to appear in court today for her trial on animal cruelty charges.

Patrick was originally taken in and cared for by the Associated Humane Societies, New Jersey’s largest animal shelter organization.

They took him to Garden State Veterinary Specialists, where, after a giant hairball was removed from his stomach, he began eating and gaining strength.

In the months that followed, by virtue of his inspiring story, he’d become a poster boy for the rescue organization, the veterinary hospital, and a few others that hoped to capitalize on his growing fame by using his case and image to fight for stronger animal abuse laws.

Associated Humane Societies  is seeking permanent custody, despite earlier rulings that he should remain in the custody of Garden State Veterinary Specialists of Tinton Falls.

Both sides accuse the other of trying to profit from Patrick’s plight.

Patrick weighed 19 pounds when he arrived there, and now weighs 50. He has been staying with Patricia Smillie-Scavelli, the hospital’s administrator, who wants to keep him.

AHS says Patrick should be returned, and that once he is, they would begin the process of finding a home for him. They deny that they are trying to make a profit off of him, and say the veterinary hospital didn’t have the right to take possession of a dog brought in for treatment.

Kisha Curtis, meanwhile, the dog’s former owner, rejected the state’s plea offer of 18 months in prison, a $5,000 fine, 30 days community service and termination of animal custody rights.

She is not accused of tossing the dog down the chute, only of neglecting and abandoning him.

(Photo credits: Top, The Patrick Miracle Facebook page; middle, Associated Humane Societies; bottom, Newark Star-Ledger)

We ran our “Christmas miracle” story yesterday — that of an eyeless dog named Stevie Oedipus Wonder, who, with a lot of help, found his way back home.

Then we came across another we have to share, too — that of a pit bull named Kapone, who, missing for six months, also made his way back home for Christmas.

Kapone, 11 years old, was one of two family pit bulls who escaped from their fenced yard six months ago in Cordova, Tenn., and were picked up by a Memphis animal control officer.

But when the family arrived at the Memphis Animal Shelter the next day to pick up the duo, only one dog was there.

“We found Jersey in the back row,” Brooke Shoup, the owner of the dogs said. “…Then we kept looking for Kapone and he wasn’t anywhere.” Shoup said a shelter manager told her his staff didn’t know where Kapone was. “He said he would review the videos and try to find out where my dog was, and what happened, and he would be in contact with me.”

Not until the next month did word come out that, while animal control records indicated both dogs were picked up, records indicated only one arrived at the shelter. What happened to Kapone was a mystery, and not exactly a new one in Memphis.

According to statistics from No Kill Memphis, in addition to the nearly 12,000 dogs euthanized at the Memphis Animal Shelter in 2010, 155 went missing — that’s right, missing, from a shelter.

Since then, the shelter has been the subject of investigations, some firings — including Demetria Hogan, the animal control employee who picked up the Shoup’s dogs — and lingering suspicions that impounded dogs were being sold, possibly to dogfighting operations.

None of that was helping to find Kapone, though, until last week.

A week ago today, the Shoup’s and animal advocates got an anonymous tip from the Memphis CrimeStoppers hotline that Kapone (an $8,000 reward was being offered for his return) was at a house in Senatobia, Miss., about 50 miles to the south.

Senatobia police escorted Darrel Shoup to the home. “I called his name, went over to pet him and he just went crazy,” Shoup said. “And we put him in the back of the van.”

You can see last week’s reunion in this Action News 5 report.

No charges have been filed against the homeowners, who had two other pit bulls. They told police Kapone had just wandered into their yard.

(Photo: From the Where’s Kapone? Facebook page)

Google “Christmas miracle” and “dog” and you’ll find 31 million or so stories — but none quite like that of Stevie Oedipus Wonder.

A cairn terrier mix, Stevie was found earlier this year wandering around a duck pond by the daughter of Belinda Gutierrez. She called her mother, crying, and told her about the puppy, which had no eyes.

Gutierrez, 49, said she told her daughter to bring the puppy home.

He quickly became part of the family. While Stevie seemed to have been abused, he apparently was born without eyes, a veterinarian told the family.

“He wouldn’t go up to anyone if it wasn’t my voice or my daughter’s voice,” Gutierrez said. “He didn’t like men’s voices. He would bark.” The dog became a big part of her life. Then, on Nov. 29, he disappeared from the family’s mobile home on San Antonio’s far West Side. They tried to find him, and put a missing notice on Craigslist.

A few days later — because every good Christmas story needs a scrooge, or at least an asshole — Gutierrez’ landlord told her that her dog was dead.

“We thought, ‘OK, he’s gone and he’ll have to just wait for us at the rainbow bridge,’” Gutierrez told the San Antonio Express-News.

Last week, though, Stevie Oedipus Wonder came home.

“This is my Christmas miracle,” Gutierrez said.

Here’s how it happened:

Stevie wasn’t dead after all. Instead he’d been picked up and taken to Animal Care Services.

He arrived on Dec. 11. The contact information on his tag was out of date, so the shelter couldn’t find his owners. As a result, Stevie, about a year old, had five days to get adopted or be euthanized.

That’s when Brooke Orr, an English as a second language teacher at Highlands High School and a co-sponsor of the school’s Voices for Animals Club, saw a post that ACS had put online in an attempt to find the blind dog a home.

She asked the shelter to put a “Save a Life” hold on him, thinking she’d take him in over the holidays. Then she checked Craigslist to see if he’d been listed as missing.

“I went to Craigslist and went to lost and found and I put in ‘blind dog,’ and there he was,” she said.

She contacted Gutierrez, whose daughter had posted the information, and let her know Stevie was safe.

Gutierrez picked Stevie up from the shelter Thursday, and, though blind, he recognized her right away.

“All he had to do was hear my voice,” she said. “And I stood at the entrance of the kennel building and called out, ‘Stevie, Stevie.’ And he started barking all over the place.”

Gutierrez said her family has since moved out of the mobile home, where she suspects the landlord contributed to Stevie’s escape.

They’re in an apartment now, celebrating Christmas, with Stevie.

(Photo: By Helen L. Montoya / San Antonio Express-News)

When their dog Scamp was hit by a car, a Washington state family checked his seemingly lifeless body, then put him under a wheelbarrow, planning to bury him the next morning.

Paul McKinlay, 61, had been speaking with his son in his front yard in Yelm when Scamp, an 8-month-old Yorkie-shih tzu mix (not Shiatsu, as ABC News reported) slipped underneath the fence and ran into the street.

McKinlay heard a yelp and a thud and arrived at the street to find the dog motionless and the female driver crying.

“We checked to see if we felt any breathing out of his nose, and we couldn’t feel any heartbeat,” said Reta McKinlay.

Her husband wrapped the dog — who they’d brought home for their granchildren this summer — in a blanket. They placed his body under an overturned wheelbarrow so no animals could get to him, with plans to bury Scamp in the morning.

Then, they broke the news to the 6-year-old twins — granchildren who live with them.

“[Paul] was going to bury him the next morning so we went into the house and just told the kids the dog had gotten hit by a car and that he had gone to heaven like in that movie, ‘All Dogs Go to Heaven.’ My grandson was crying. He asked if [Scamp] evaporated like in the movie and I said, ‘Yes, that’s what happened.’”

But when Paul McKinlay went outside the next morning and lifted up the wheelbarrow, Scamp was sitting up.

Four days and $3,000 in vet bills later Scamp, who’d suffered a concussion, broken teeth and a possible jaw fracture, was brought home by the McKinlays — much to the suprise of their twin granchildren, who, just in case Scamp didn’t make it, hadn’t initially been told that the dog was still alive.

Mrs. McKinlay said her husband had been “distraught” that he left Scamp out in the cold, but vets told the couple that the cold temperatures could have kept the dog alive, by keeping his brain from swelling.

“Sometimes God’s just not ready to take something away,” she said.