TRIPAWDS: Home to 22969 Members and 2152 Blogs.
HOME » NEWS » BLOGS » FORUMS » CHAT » YOUR PRIVACY » RANDOM BLOG

Caring for a Three Legged Dog or Cat

Tripawds is your home to learn how to care for a three legged dog or cat, with answers about dog leg amputation, and cat amputation recovery from many years of member experiences.

JUMP TO FORUMS

Join The Tripawds Community

Learn how to help three legged dogs and cats in the forums below. Browse and search as a guest or register for free and get full member benefits:

Instant post approval.

Private messages to members.

Subscribe to favorite topics.

Live Chat and much more!

Please consider registering
Guest
Search
Forum Scope


Match



Forum Options



Minimum search word length is 3 characters - maximum search word length is 84 characters
Register Lost password?
sp_Feed sp_PrintTopic sp_TopicIcon-c
Designing and Building Prosthetics for Dogs
sp_NewTopic Add Topic

Member Since:
20 January 2017
sp_UserOfflineSmall Offline
1
24 January 2017 - 10:21 am
sp_Permalink sp_Print sp_EditHistory sp_QuotePost

Hi! My name is Amritha, and I'm currently designing and building prosthetic limbs for dogs in my high school engineering capstone class. To begin this process, I need some input Tripawds bloggers! If you have the time, I would really appreciate it if you take the survey linked below. It's very short and will only take a couple of minutes!

At this moment, I am at the designing/ researching phase. As in, I'm learning about animal prosthetics , canine anatomy, and dog rehabilitation, creating my demands and wishes for my model, and starting my initial sketches. Shortly, we will be creating models and prototypes, and, finally, will have finished products by May/June. My purpose is to create a dog prosthetic that is innovative in some kind of way, whether it be in design or how it attaches to the limb or in cost effectiveness. As many dogs do relatively well without a prosthetic or may not adapt to one, I realize that in the best case scenario, a dog would receive a prosthetic right after his or her amputation.

As far as the survey, it doesn't get into the specifics much. It just gathers the feelings dog-owners have about prosthetics and how much you willing to give them a chance if it were an option.

My main goal with this project is to create a prosthetic that is just as functional as a current prosthetic, but much more cost effective, as I am aware of how extremely expensive prosthetics are. It would be amazing to create a prosthetic that is widely accessible and, after analyzing the dog's body structure, able to conform perfectly to the anatomy, whether there be a large stump left or none at all. To accomplish this, I would really appreciate your thoughts!

Thank you!

The survey: https://goo.gl/.....SRw9lYuYM2

On The Road


Member Since:
24 September 2009
sp_UserOfflineSmall Offline
2
24 January 2017 - 11:21 am
sp_Permalink sp_Print sp_EditHistory sp_QuotePost

Hi Amritha!

As I mentioned in our emails, I'm so impressed with the research and effort you're putting into this project. You are wise beyond your years!

Two questions for you:

1) can our feline friends answer this survey too? We do have quite a few "TriKitty" members here and I'm sure they would love to share their thoughts as well. Understandable though if this project is only about dogs, just let us know.

2) what is the deadline for the survey?

Thanks again. I'm hopping over there now to answer the survey.

FYI just to clarify a few things about prosthetics . New members, if you click on the "prosthetics " link you'll find the information we currently know about prosthetics for animals. With the technology currently available, the decision about whether or not to use an artificial limb has to be made before the amputation surgery. That's so the animal has enough stump for the prosthesis to attach to. We know many people try them regardless, but we don't know the long-term success rate of artificial limbs used on animals who have no stump. It would be interesting to find and read any examples out there.

Implanted artificial limbs are on the horizon for those animals who don't have enough stump, but widespread implementation of that method is a ways off as far as  I know. With talented researchers like Amritha out there, hopefully it won't be too long before we can have more options for animal amputees who don't have enough stump for today's technologies. 

One more point of clarification: as OrthoPets states in the article about DIY prosthetics for animals, we don't encourage people to try these projects on their own without the assistance of designers knowledgeable in the field animal biomechanics (movement).

Tripawds Founders Jim and Rene
tripawds.com | tripawds.org | bemoredog.net | triday.pet

Forum Timezone: America/Denver
Most Users Ever Online: 946
Currently Online: benny55, mischief, laura_1, Cynthia Lindgren
Guest(s) 194
Currently Browsing this Page:
1 Guest(s)
Member Stats:
Guest Posters: 1268
Members: 17732
Moderators: 6
Admins: 3
Forum Stats:
Groups: 4
Forums: 24
Topics: 18610
Posts: 256798
Administrators: admin, jerry, Tripawds
Tripawds is brought to you by Tripawds.
HOME » NEWS » BLOGS » FORUMS » CHAT » YOUR PRIVACY » RANDOM BLOG