A seven-member team performed an unusual surgery to help Chelsea, a pup living in a Chester County foster home, learn what it is like to live without pain, writes Rita Giordano for The Philadelphia Inquirer. 

Despite being in pain most of her life, the 9-month-old Great Pyrenees rescue has a strong spirit and will even try to play with the pigs at her home until the pain gets too bad. 

For the past few months, Chelsea’s caretakers at Kimberton-based To Love a Canine Rescue along with multiple veterinarians tried to find a way to end the puppy’s pain. Sadly, nothing was working. 

Then last week, a team of seven veterinary and human medicine surgeons did an unusual surgery that lasted more than five hours on Chelsea in hopes of stabilizing her badly malformed lower spine and pelvis. 

While it will take around a month before the pooch’s caretakers know if the surgery worked, the doctors were optimistic. 

“I think it went very well,” said Suzanne Rosen, a veterinary neurosurgeon with the Veterinary Referral Center in Malvern. “I think we all did what we had hoped to.” 

Read more about Chelsea at To Love a Canine Rescue and her surgery in The Philadelphia Inquirer. 

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