Our beloved 4-year-old Saint Bernard, Aelin, needs specialized surgery by a boarded surgeon to place an internal mesh and reinforce her body wall so that she can heal properly.

Aelin was spayed June 23, 2026, and despite doing everything correctly for her post-surgery care, her body wall failed and she herniated. We had it repaired, and they used the largest sutures available, stitched and stapled her up using the best techniques they had, but stated she had a lot of inflammation going on in there and they were concerned it still might not hold. We noticed a lump 1 week post-hernia repair and took her back. She had a fever and an abscess in her surgical area that we had to have drained, and they put a special drain pump in that had to be emptied 3x per day for 5 days. We thought we were coming to the end of this ordeal, but 2 days after her drain came out, her body wall failed again. Poor Aelin has been on crate rest since late June. She has had 3 back-to-back anti-inflammatory prescriptions, antibiotics, and has undergone anesthesia 3 times in the past month and is now looking at surgery #4.

Her pet insurance has denied every claim due to it being related to her spay surgery (which they don't cover), and we have paid $4,500 out of pocket already. We have maxed every credit card, CareCredit, borrowed from friends who were sweet enough to want to help, and are now looking at coming up with the funds for another several-thousand-dollar surgery. We love our girl so much, and she is young and otherwise healthy. We are asking for any help that our community is willing to give us. We have a very short time frame to get this surgery done, as her hernia contains part of her intestines.