A PUPPY that was dumped in a bin with eight others is ‘a picture of health’ after being adopted in Bicester.

Chocolate Labrador type Magnum - formally named Jim - was taken in by Gloria Westbrook after she heard of the puppies' plight.

Magnum and eight other puppies - a mixture of breeds - were found ditched in a plastic bin in Gerrards Cross in Buckinghamshire.

The pups were found by RSPCA inspector Mel Fisher in June last year inside a plastic bin after she had an anonymous phone call about someone selling puppies from a van in the area.

She said: “I had received reports of someone selling extremely sick puppies from the back of a van in Gerrards Cross so I went to investigate.

“I found a van dumped nearby and, tucked behind some nearby bushes, a large plastic bin with the puppies inside.

“It was during a hot spell so they were panting and really quiet because they were in such baking heat.”

Ms Fisher took the puppies to a nearby vets before moving them to the RSPCA’s Blackberry Farm Animal Centre in Aylesbury.

On a visit a few weeks later she said: “They’re doing really well. When they first came in they were lethargic and quiet, they had diarrhoea and [we were] quite worried.

“[When we rescued them] they were so un-puppy like, they were very quiet and very thirsty, and to see them now acting like proper puppies causing chaos is just lovely because they are little personalities again, which is brilliant.

Puppy Magnum has now been with the Westbrook family in Bicester for ten months and is ‘loving his new life’.

Ms Westbrook said: “He brings a lot of fun and love to our home - and exercise.

“And he enriches our lives with laughter.

“He really is just a great big, bouncy teddy bear.”

Magnum, alongside Agnes, Barbara, Cheryl, Davina, Denise, Jerry, Joey and Norman , featured on Channel 5s The Dog Rescuers on July 24.

The RSPCA said despite an investigation into how the dogs ended up in the bin, they were unable to trace the culprit.

All the puppies are back to full health and have now been adopted by new families across the country.