Czech zoo has world's first cheetah with artificial hip

[Champ]

Not the same Cheetah but a picture of a Cheetah, they are my favorite animals. I just don't want to be the one running away in a pursuit. ;)

PRAGUE (AFP) - A cheetah at a Czech zoo has become the first in the world to be fitted with an artificial hip, the zoo's vet Vaclav Pozivil said.


The two-year-old cheetah called Jane, who lives at the zoo in Usti nad Labem in the north of the country, had been suffering from a congenital disorder of a hip joint.


Jane was operated on by doctors at the local hospital in Litomerice, who replaced the distorted joint with an artificial one.


"Without an operation, Jane would have been condemned to a gradual loss of mobility, and would have had to be put down in the end," said Pozivil, adding that the cheetah was continuing her convalescence.




http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=1516&ncid=1516&e=1&u=/afp/20041122/od_afp/afplifestyle_czech_041122112640