'Fat' dog had giant tumour.

WHEN vets tried to work out why a pet dog had ballooned in size, they were astonished to discover a giant benign tumour.

Labradors are renowned for their appetites but when Tuffley, from Warwick, piled on the pounds, experts feared something more sinister than over-eating.

When the 12-year-old was x-rayed the growth appeared as a giant fatty mass - known as a lipoma.

It accounted for a quarter of Tuffley's body mass and was so large it had started putting pressure on internal organs.

Anita White, of Avonvale Veterinary Hospital, said: "I was staggered at the size of Tuffley's tumour - which weighed 5.85 kilos - almost 13 pounds.

Although small lipomas are fairly common in dogs, Tuffley's tumour measured about a quarter of his body mass and was certainly a surgery record. Fortunately such tumours are rarely malignant so once we removed the giant mass, Tuffley was in the clear." The anomaly was discovered at a free weight clinic run by the surgery, in Broxell Close, Warwick.

Ms White added: "Tuffley has an owner who is very careful about his food so we knew the increase in size wasn't due to overfeeding.

He was a very strange shape which suggested a tumour of some sort. But thankfully it was nothing serious and he made a full recovery."

CAPTION(S):

STRANGE SHAPE... Vet Anita White was staggered to find that pet labrador Tuffley had a tumour weighing a quarter of his body mass. Now that it has been removed he has made a full recovery.