A Thai dog has become the first dog in the world to be given hi-tech prosthetic legs with blades made from same materials used by Paralympic runners, an animal welfare charity told dpa on Tuesday.
Cola, a two-year-old mixed-breed Thai dog, was fitted with the prosthetics on December 1 and started running just five minutes later, the Phuket-based Soi Dog Foundation said.
“We are so happy to see Cola running with his new legs. It is great to see him play and run like the other dogs,” said the foundation’s founder John Dalley.
Cola lost his front legs when he was six months old after an enraged Bangkok resident slashed his legs with a sword for chewing his shoes, Dalley said.
Feeling an immediate affinity with Cola, Dalley’s wife Gill, who lost both of her legs after contracting septicaemia 10 years ago, took the puppy in and moved him 840 kilometres south of the capital to Phuket.
The decision to give Cola the legs came after Gill Dalley, who got her prosthetic legs from an orthopaedic laboratory in the southern resort city, decided to ask the lab to also make a pair for her dog.
“I knew that the most natural thing for me to do was to help. Cola is the first dog I have made bilateral legs for,” said Bengt Soderberg, owner of the Scandinavian Orthopedic Laboratory in Phuket.
“The new legs took about a year to create and are very similar to what professional athletes use in the Paralympics,” Soderberg added.
