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Bionic Bitch
This is a story about how Sasha became a Bionic Bitch.
On one dark night in November 2008 Sasha slipped her collar and was hit by a car and this is where the story begins…
She was rushed to the vets and they took some xrays and it was confirmed she had a broken pelvis.
Next few days were awful as we were waiting to see if she had some other internal damage.
Luckily this was not the case.
The vet said she was lucky to only get away with broken pelvis, considering how hard she was hit for her pelvis to break (big dog, big bones).
Pelvis fractures can be and sometimes are left to heal on their own but this can be painful for the dog and due to movement it will take longer to heal. The end result might also be “wonky” as the bone will set to where it is. With a large dog it is even more important to get the fractured bits back to where they were as heavy dogs will need as much of the use of their both back legs as possible, some lighter dogs and cats can do fine with just one back leg but not a dog of a size of Leonberger.
If you look at the xray below (taken on the night it all happened) you can see how wonky Sasha’s pelvis was and we were definitely not going to leave her pelvis like that!
We felt it is important to put everything back together as closely as possible so that it will have minimal effect to her movement and we will hopefully avoid future problems arising from the fracture.
Operations are always risky but the benefits she was going to get from it (closer to normal pelvis structure, faster recovery) far outweighed the risks.
She was in huge pain and had morphine injections every few hours, she used all of the vets morphine stock in few days!
Operation would ease the pain more or less straight away but they would have to wait for few days as this would reduce bleeding when the damaged area is operated so Sasha had to wait for 2 days before being operated on.
The vet operated her pelvis to put it bag in the place it was supposed to be on (and to get her hips line nicely again).
The xray below shows Sasha's pelvis after the operation and the positioning of the cutting-edge,top secret part that will make her run faster and jump higher she would be able to without it 
.
I do not believe she is able to see through walls now but she should still be able to hear when the biscuit box is being moved and transfer from fast a sleep to full alert when the pigs ear bag is opened.
Sasha might be left with a limp for the rest of her life but having become A Bionic Bitch will give her the best possible opportunity to live a normal life!
Her show career might be over before it even properly started but if this is the case there will be many more hobbies she will be able to do instead of showing.
Sasha’s daddy did ask me if they do disabled classes at the shows J?
I also have very important message: If you are reading this and have been thinking of insuring your dog, do it now!
We never thought this would happen to us but it did and the insurance has really helped, not having to worry about costs as everything else is quite enough to cause few grey hairs.
Some people end up not getting the operation done purely because of the cost of it, I would have not wanted to be in a situation of not getting Sasha the best care available because I can not afford it!
All this cutting edge technology and operations did come at hefty price, running at nearly £6000 at the moment and she has not finished her physiotherapy and will still go and do some hydrotheraphy to help her build up her muscles again.
Also, if you are ever in a position we were in, do not lose hope!
When we saw the xrays, first thing that crossed my mind was that we will have to let Sasha go and become an angel-dog!
Our vet must have seen my face drop as he quickly said this is not it; The damage looks awful but it is actually one of those fractures that heals well and the dogs usually have totally normal life after they have recovered.