Cats. Dogs. Puppies. Kittens.
They’re everywhere if you surf YouTube or have pet-lover friends on Facebook. Not a day goes by without a half dozen postings of little Rosie’s latest adorable catnip adventure, or Audi romping after a tennis ball.
One website, wimp.com, posts daily feel-good videos that are heavy on the “awww” factor.
(Examples: “Kitten fights urge to sleep,” and “20 puppies and kittens lick each other for the first time.”)
The bottom line is that Americans love their pets. According to the Humane Society of the United States, 62 percent of American households include at least one pet. That breaks down to 83.3 million dogs and 95.6 million cats. Most owners treat their pets as family members and some even as surrogate children.
Because of that, a new special on PBS’ Nature ought not to surprise anyone and should delight most. My Bionic Pet airs at 7 p.m. Wednesday on PBS and AETN. It’s not only about our furry friends.
About the hour special, Nature says, “The animals of the world may increasingly need our help with big issues like preserving habitat or species conservation. But sometimes individual animals need our help as well.
“The individual animals have been left disabled without fins, flippers, beaks or tails because of disease, accidents or even human cruelty. It appears that these unfortunate creatures need what amounts to a miracle if they are to survive.”
Miracle? One word: prosthetics.
Incredible prosthetics made possible by the latest engineering and technology are able to provide just what some disabled critters need. Scientists also are finding that innovations created in the process are benefiting humans as well.
Nearly 1,000 animals a year are fitted with some form of prosthetic device that gives them a second chance at life if someone comes to their rescue.
Flip back and note the pooch on today’s TV Week cover. That’s Journey, a certified therapy dog who’s featured in the special.
Journey, a golden retriever born without his front left paw, was fitted for a brace made by Westcoast Brace & Limb in Tampa, Fla. Journey has a special bond with Jennifer Robinson, until recently the patient program director at Westcoast, and born with a limb deficiency of both legs.
Robinson often worked with Journey helping amputees adjust to life with prosthetics. The dog has also become a favorite visitor to patients at St. Joseph’s Children Hospital, as well as veterans and the elderly.
That’s just one tale to be told. Others include an injured crow fitted with an acrylic beak; a sea turtle with only one flipper who gets a rubber prosthetic; an alligator given a new tail after its original was chomped off; and a border collie given prosthetic back legs from a surgeon who has a prosthetic limb.
And there’s my favorite - Chris P. Bacon, pig in a wheelchair. When a piglet born with unusable hind legs was brought to Dr. Len Lucero’s clinic to be euthanized, the Florida vet built a wheeled harness from some of his son’s old toys. The porcine pet, having outgrown his first homemade device, has graduated to a wheelchair originally built for dogs.
The special profiles all these animals, their rescuers and the individuals whose work has transformed their lives.
My Bionic Pet shows that while animal prosthetics are sometimes retrofitted for human needs, engineers most often adapt human technologies to suit an animal’s anatomy.
The fabrication and subsequent operation to attach artificial limbs can be expensive, but as My Bionic Pet explains, a number of people have volunteered to assume the costs (sometimes with fundraising support) and even care of these disabled animals.
For example, Los Angeles area friends Kathy Wyer and Elodie Lorenz decided to co-foster Roofus, a blind golden retriever with deformed front legs, and arrange for specialized prosthetics that allow him to walk using all four legs.
Likewise, Tara Bayne and Devin Napier from Canada became owners of Driftwood, a border collie puppy born with both rear feet missing. My Bionic Pet follows Driftwood’s surgery and subsequent first steps on his artificial hind feet.
The documentary notes that it’s often a matter of trial and error before a solution is reached.
It was a team effort by Phoenix’s Core Institute and Midwestern University professor Justin Georgi to design a replacement tail made from wet suit material for Mr. Stubbs, the alligator whose appendage was bitten off by a larger gator.
Other stories are replacing part of a swan’s deformed beak so he can preen and eat properly at the Carolina Waterfowl Rescue in Indian Trail, N.C.; and providing Molly, an injured pony, with a prosthetic leg so she can serve as a therapy animal around the New Orleans area.
My Bionic Pet is inspirational and entertaining, even if you don’t own a pet.
TV Week, Pages 87 on 04/06/2014