Prosthetics company for pets

[Catherine]

I wonder if endoskeletal prosthetics is still in the experimental stage. There must be a number of issues to be worked out.  In the end it will be the best solution to limb loss. They are working at hooking up the nerves so the limb will have full function.  That would be for limbs that have been amputated.  I don't know if it would apply to limbs that were deformed or absent from birth. That might be a different kind of problem.

This whole field is growing and changing. Even the limbs they are making are better and better. They have better materials. They are light enough that the dog can use them comfortably. They no longer try to make the prosthesis look like the limb it is replacing. They work more at replacing the function the limb performed. They do that with humans too. The best prosthesis is often very odd looking.

Lots of animals are doing very well with a little help. This morning my bus was stuck in traffic so I had time to watch a man walking his shepherd dog. The dog was having fun sniffing its way along the sidewalk. As the dog got close I could see that it had no eyes. It is not that they were closed. The eye lids covered  sunken areas. The dog was doing just fine walking with a human who had a leash to guide him.  So I basically saw a "seeing eye" human guiding a blind dog.