Tuesday, April 23, 2013

Puppy gets new artificial limb after losing foot in coyote attack

Little Bandit was going through a dark time in his life a few months back. Abandoned in the backwoods of Kentucky, he was attacked by a coyote, which bit off his left front foot.

He wound up at Sweet Adoptables, a Westport pet adoption agency that specializes in finding homes for strays from the South. "They contacted us to inquire about a prosthesis," said Jeff Rubelmann, a technician at BioMetrics, a company in Trumbull that makes artificial limbs and braces.



Only one problem. BioMetrics makes artificial limbs for humans, not animals. In this case, however, Rubelmann made an exception. "When he came in to see us, we found out that he was up for adoption, so I adopted him and made a prosthesis for him," Rubelmann said.

Rubelmann went to work and made a plaster cast of Bandit's leg, just like he does for his human patients. Bandit's new foot is similar to a leg that might be used for a small child. The people at BioMetrics hope that as Bandit ages, he'll grow to accept his new leg as his own.

There's a news video here.

2 comments:

SteveC said...

My lab is a 'tripod' and three legged. Her leg was injured further up though and she was left for no stump to attach a leg. She gets along fine and looks to run but she does gets tired quicker than a four legged dog.
With this puppy having just foot missing maybe a prosthetic will work. I hope so anyway

Anonymous said...

This is why I shoot coyotes on sight.