A couple worried about their dog putting on a few pounds were stunned when vets removed a mass from its abdomen the same weight as their other dog.

Seven-year-old Labrador Retriever Colin needed surgery at specialists Swift Referrals in Wetherby, West Yorkshire after being repeatedly sick.

And Tom Mayes and partner Tracy Parker, from Hessle, near Hull, were amazed to be told the abdominal mass they discovered was the same size as a football and weighed 7.4kg.

That’s heavier than seven bags of sugar — and the same weight as the couple’s miniature Schnauzer, Alice.

Thankfully, the vast lump was found not to be cancerous, and a now-lightweight Colin is back to full health.

“Colin started having the odd morning off his food and was being sick occasionally,” said Tom. 

“Despite that, he was putting a bit of weight on, and his stomach felt very firm, so we took him to our own vets for a check-up.

“They did an ultrasound scan and said a mass was pressing into his organs, but they couldn’t see what it was attached to.

“And when we then found out it was more than 20cm long, we knew we had to get the best help we could. It was a really worrying time.”

Colin was seen at Swift Referrals, a specialist veterinary referral centre in the My Family Vets network, which is part of IVC Evidensia.

After a CT scan, soft tissue surgeon Jonathan Bell and his resident Vicky Hutchings performed exploratory abdominal surgery.

“We found a large mass coming from the spleen,” said Mr Bell. “We performed a procedure called a splenectomy, which is the removal of the spleen, using a vessel-sealing device and ligatures.

“We also removed an enlarged and suspicious-looking lymph node. When we weighed the mass, it was 7.4kg which was quite a size.

“We kept Colin in to monitor his blood count and manage any post-op pain before discharging him. When we sent sections of the mass and the lymph node to the lab for a biopsy, they thankfully came back with no signs of cancer, and he didn’t need any further treatment.”

Having had an anxious wait during the procedure, Tom and Tracy were thrilled to be able to get newly slimline Colin back home to join Alice.

“When we heard the size of the mass, we could hardly believe it,” said Tom. “Alice is the same weight as that, and she wouldn’t fit inside him, so it must have been so dense and heavy.

“We were thinking back to taking him on walks when he was always lagging behind — no wonder, with the poor lad basically carrying another dog inside him.

“Now he is just fantastic. He’s a couple of steps ahead of us on walks and has a real trot back.

“It was a big relief to find out that it wasn’t cancer, and we are so thankful to everyone in the team at Swifts.”