A dog from Bletchingley has made a remarkable recovery after vets discovered a "huge" 7kg tumour and conducted a high-risk operation to remove it.

Sky the dog was brought into veterinary cancer specialists North Downs Specialist Referrals (NDSR) after her owners were concerned over a sustained weightloss and large pot belly.

Gerry Polton, clinical director at the Linnaeus-run NDSR vets said he was "astonished" after working to remove the 7kg tumour from 10-year-old Sky during an emergency operation procedure earlier this month.

"Sky was referred to NDSR after her owner had become concerned about her weight loss, low energy levels and what appeared to be a pot belly.

"When we examined her, she was desperately lean and weighed just 24kg. The pot belly was revealed to be caused by an extremely large tumour which had developed internally," he said, pointing out how the tumour had accounted for almost a third of Sky's entire bodyweight pre-surgery.

Surrey Comet: Sky the dog was saved by vets in Bletchingley Sky the dog was saved by vets in Bletchingley

"We carried out a CT scan which confirmed the presence of a huge mass – so big it actually distorted the layout of everything else in her abdomen, making it impossible to be sure about whether it grew from her liver or her spleen," Poulton said.

He went on to describe the extremely risky procedure in further detail, detailing how surgeons were forced to "delicately" cut around the tumour and hope that Sky pulled through:

"We elevated the mass to ensure the blood return to the heart was maintained and then it was delicately cut away.

"Every one of us was astonished when the tumour was finally removed and it could be seen in its entirety," he said.

Surrey Comet: A diagram of the CT scan showing Sky the dig and the tumor removed A diagram of the CT scan showing Sky the dig and the tumor removed

"The operation was a great success, though, and Sky has made a fabulous recovery.

"Ten weeks after her operation, she had regained 4kg and her owner told me that: ‘Sky has never been brighter’.”

NDSR offers specialist-led services in anaesthesia and analgesia, cardiology, dentistry, dermatology, diagnostic imaging, internal medicine, neurology, oncology, ophthalmology, orthopaedics, soft tissue surgery and spinal surgery.