A mega-sized roly-poly pug called Rolo is fighting the flab and trying to win a national pet slimming competition.

The three-year-old “food motivated” dog is known to chase people carrying shopping bags and even follow complete strangers into their home.

His favourite trick is to pull at the tablecloth until any food on the table falls to the floor.

Rolo weighed a whopping 2st 5lb (15kg) when he was adopted by a new owner last December and currently weighs 2st 1lb.

The greedy pooch needs to lose an entire stone (6.5kg) to reach his ideal size, so has been entered into the PDSA charity's Pet Fit Club competition.

Vets at Croydon PDSA pet hospital will be managing the pug's diet and helping him battle the bulge.

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Rolo’s owner Lydia Ernstsons, from Epsom, (above) said: “We thought very carefully about taking on such an overweight pet as we knew it would be a challenge, but Rolo is so loving and adorable we wanted to give him a proper chance at life.

“When we first got him he couldn’t run and could only walk for a few minutes before he got too tired, then he’d just collapse on the floor and I would have to carry him home.

“Sometimes children would even laugh at him, because he was so fat!

“He lost a little weight at first but then seemed to plateau, so I entered him into PDSA Pet Fit Club.”

Rolo is up against 16 other supersized pets in the competition, including other dumpy dogs, fat cats and even a flabby rat.

Tackling the growing problem of pet obesity, the PDSA contest launched in 2005 and has already helped 63 dogs, 26 cats and six rabbits lose a total of 60 stone 6lb.

This weight loss is the equivalent of 384 bags of sugar, more than 6,700 sausages, 761 tins of dog food or over 500 blocks of lard.

Good luck t Rolo and the other animals striving to add to these totals this year.

See www.petfitclub.org.uk for more info.