10 Pet Medical Miracles of 2012

Dogs get into all sorts of trouble, but one fateful day in mid-2012 a six-year-old Border Collie Bella fell off a bed and completely disabled her right front leg. The leg soon became parallel to the floor and Bella became unable to walk properly. Bella’s guardians took her to several veterinarians before they brought her to Dr. Mike Pavletic, head of surgery at Boston’s Angell Animal Medical Center, who believed that Bella would be an excellent candidate for a breakthrough surgical technique he invented.

To help Bella get her front leg back in action, Dr. Pavletic surgically separated the triceps muscle on Bella’s injured leg to ease the rigidity and enable her to straighten the leg toward the floor. Then, he and his medical team transferred a piece of Bella’s Latissimus Dorsi—the heavily muscled side of her back—to the front of her right leg. Bella’s back muscles would now do the work that the muscle on the front of her leg had done prior to her fall.

Several months after her surgery and with lots of physical therapy, Bella can walk again and is getting stronger every day. Now, that’s a miracle!