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BURLINGTON — Burlington police are no longer looking for the driver of an SUV who last week was suspected of taking a teacup poodle and purposely running it over on Rainey Street.

Police on Monday found the driver of the burgundy sports utility vehicle with the license tag number provided by a witness. But the story the man told police and eventually Yadira Arzola, the owner of a teacup poodle named Princess that was killed on Jan. 4., didn't match the account that the witness originally provided police.

Investigators and Arzola no longer believe that the poodle was stolen or purposefully run over and the man in the SUV wasn't the driver that hit the dog, Burlington police Capt. Steve Smith said.

Arzola discovered that 5-year-old Princess was missing on the evening of Jan. 4. which, after a search of a neighborhood, she reported to Burlington Animal Services. That same evening a woman on Rainey Street called Burlington police to report that she watched someone in a burgundy SUV drop two dogs -- a pincher and a teacup poodle -- in the road, and then the driver is alleged to have tried to run over both dogs but hit only the poodle.

Arzola learned all of this on the morning of Jan. 5 after someone from Burlington Animal Services showed up at her door to say that a dog matching Princess' description was found dead on Rainey Street.

The news that her dog was dead was bad enough, Arzola said, but hearing that someone might have done it on purpose really bothered her.

"I wish I never heard the story," Arzola said, tears streaming down her face.

Police eventually found the man who was driving the SUV. He told police he was driving on Rainey Street the evening of Jan. 4 and he had his two young daughters with him. They all watched as the driver of a four-door Toyota accidentally struck Princess, who was in the road with the pincher.

The pincher was not hit. The daughters of the driver of the SUV  were upset by what they saw. The driver turned his vehicle around to check on the poodle, which was when the witness thought he was attempting to run over the pincher, Smith said. After another car stopped to help, the SUV driver left the scene because his daughters were crying.

When police checked back with the witness and interviewed her a second time, she told them that she didn't actually see the man drop the dogs from the vehicle.

"She assumed it," Smith said.

Arzola met with police and the driver of the SUV on Tuesday morning.

"I could see into his eyes and his wife's eyes," Arzola said. "I heard their story. I am sure they are innocent people in the wrong place."

Arzola said she thinks that the witness reported what she thought she saw and was trying to help.

"But in the end, it caused more pain," Arzola said. "... If I would have known that day my dog was run over, I still would have cried but I would have put it away because I still have my other dog, my children, my family. "

Thinking that someone purposely hurt her dog "made her lose faith in people," she said.

She no longer feels that way, even though the driver who actually hit her dog left the scene. There is no law that requires a driver to stop after hitting an animal, Smith said.

"The person who hit her didn't stop, but it was an accident," Arzola said. "It makes me feel better about the whole situation."

No one knows who the pincher belongs to or where the dog ended up, although the pincher did remain by Princess' side for awhile after Princess was killed, Smith said.