A woman tried to save her stolen French bulldog by clinging to the bonnet of a moving car as its dognapper sped away from a supermarket in Los Angeles.

The dog’s owner, Ali Zacharias, was having lunch on January 18 outside a branch of Whole Foods when she noticed a woman she didn’t know holding her pet and carrying it into a car.

Ms Zacharias, who runs a clothes shop in downtown LA, initially thought it was a misunderstanding and tried to explain that the one-year-old French bulldog, called Onyx, belonged to her.

But her pleas were ignored and the car began to drive away.

“The last thing I could do is stand in front of the car,” she said. “I was trying to put my body there. They drove into me until I fell on the hood. I grabbed onto the window wipers.”

The car sped off along a main road with Ms Zacharias still lying on the bonnet. “They were swerving to throw me off,” she said.

Eventually the manoeuvring worked and Ms Zacharias was thrown from the car a short distance away. She suffered cuts and bruises but did not require hospital treatment.

Los Angeles police have so far been unable to track down the car or the missing dog. A spokesperson said on Monday they were looking for two suspects - a man and a woman, both around 25 years old.