[feld]

My dog had this procedure done when he was a puppy which saved his life. The standard procedure is to crack open the dog's chest and tie this pathway off. This is the old way of doing it; we don't do this to humans anymore as there are a lot of risks involved and it takes a long time to heal. The much more expensive but safe procedure is to go through the femoral artery. He now has a platinum coil in his heart and no longer has a femoral pulse because they tie it off.

http://www.nhlbi.nih.gov/health/health-topics/topics/pda/