Cat With Prostetic Legs

Cat Walks For First Time With Prosthetic Legs

Vincent seemed to have used up all of his nine lives when he showed up at the Story County Animal Shelter in Iowa. Discarded, two-legged kittens probably don’t start out with that many lives anyway. But when a woman discovered the hapless cat at the shelter, she couldn’t walk away without him.

“Normally a cat like him that came into a shelter would not a have a future because his injuries are pretty staggering,” Cindy Jones, who woman who took him home, says in a video uploaded to YouTube. “I took one look at him, fell in love and took him home.”

Jones took care of the love. But, what about those legs? That’s where science came in.

Veterinarians at Iowa State University’s Department of Veterinary Clinical Sciences devised a one-of-a-kind procedure to attach prosthetic legs to the cat when it seemed impossible.

“His implants go inside the bone and then traverse the skin so he actually has metal posts poking through his skin,” Mary Sarah Bergh, the surgeon who attached Vincent’s prosthetic legs, says in a press release. “That’s very, very unique and a challenging problem and implant to work with.”

After just one surgery, in February 2014, Vincent was walking again. Tentatively, at first.

“The first time I saw him after surgery, it was scary, to be honest,” Jones says. “Because you don’t normally see metal things poking out of your cat.”

But she soon got used to the titanium alloy hind legs. Just like Vincent. Several more surgeries succeeded in lengthening and strengthening his artificial legs.

“His bones are looking great,” Bergh explains. “The implants are stable. And he’s walking really well on them so I couldn’t be happier with how he’s doing. I anticipate he’ll be jumping and doing really normal cat things very soon.”

Vincent’s success is also a resounding triumph for veterinary science � and promises to save even more animals from an untimely end at shelters.

“This does open up the door for us to be able to help other animals who have similar problems,” Bergh says. “Even what we’ve learned just through Vincent’s one case, we’ve actually refined the technique and the implants so the next cases we do moving forward will be even more successful.”

The joy and satisfaction of saving a precious life is beyond words and money. If you would like to experience such happiness, do consider adopting a homeless animal at http://PetFinder.my.

Source: http://thedo.do/1PLHtng

Source: https://www.facebook.com/PetFinder.my/videos/100912868579942..

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