Husky Has First Permanent Artificial Legs For Dogs
Thanks to Christine and Yippy for barking in about this story!
Christine wrote:
Good Morning Joy~!Have you heard about this dog~?! She has an aMaZiNg story~! You can see her whole story through the links on this page, this is the latest~! *^_^*
Christine & Yippy
Here’s the story from CBS4 Denver.
‘Triumph’ The Dog Continues To Amaze Doctors
Kathy Walsh
A remarkable dog continues to pave the way for humans but experienced a problem with one of her implants.
“Triumph” is the first dog ever implanted with permanent artificial legs. The surgery was done in July of 2005 by veterinarians at Alameda East Veterinary Hospital.
She was found on the side of a road in the country of Turkey with her legs cut off. In Denver, she became the first dog ever implanted with permanent artificial legs.
Over the last few months, Triumph has returned for surgeries to make those legs even better.
“It became loose so we can’t have her running around with a loose implant because it’ll fracture the bone,” said Marion Moeller, Triumph’s owner.
On Aug. 1, veterinarian Dr. Robert Taylor surgically removed the special metal prosthesis and found that the leg didn’t appear to be infected.
“So we’ve got our fingers crossed,” Dr. Taylor said. “We’re going to pray to the bone infection god tonight and hope that we’re going to be okay.”
The husky had to go back 10 weeks later for a brand new implant which was custom made for the right leg.
A team of both animal and human doctors worked on the leg. They hollowed the bone to enlarge the center to make room for the new implant.
They wrapped three wires around the bone to keep it from cracking and began tapping the implant in.
During the surgery, the team had to call the implant designer to okay the implant removal to thin the bone again.
The surgical team carefully repeated the process again and again.
Triumph’s skin was sewn tight to the implant and in time, both the bone and the surrounding soft tissues should grow into the special foam metal.
“This is going to be a winner for her and that baby’s not going to move,” Dr. Taylor said. “I’ll tell you that.”
Just 3 days later, Triumph was walking on her new hind leg amazing her doctors.
“They work beautifully as you can see,” Moeller said. “It’s been an awesome, awesome journey.”
