Fake legs for animals
The Star, 20 June 2003

PHOTOGRAPHS of dogs, cows, horses, llamas and even a kangaroo blanketed the examination table, tossed there one by one by Richard Nitsch like he was dealing cards. 

Nitsch, who ticked off the history of each animal like a proud father, had fitted them all with artificial limbs. And the photos told the story. 

Among them was Mocha, the llama with her coffee-coloured artificial leg, an almost perfect match of her fur. There was also Stumpie, the kangaroo, who was fitted with an artificial foot on her left leg. 

“All of them are success stories in one way or another,” said Nitsch, office manager of American Orthopedics, a Columbus-based (US) company that manufactures artificial limbs for people. 

Nitsch and veterinary surgeon David Anderson at Ohio State University in the United States, teamed up three years ago to give animal amputees new lives by replacing lost limbs. 

Anderson was first approached in 1993 about doing surgery on a cow so it could be fitted with an artificial leg and continue to breed. After that, he did artificial-limb operations once every couple of years. 

Nitsch had 20 years of experience making artificial limbs for people. When Anderson presented the idea of making an artificial leg for a rare black alpaca, Nitsch agreed. 

Since the two have become a team, Anderson has done one or two artificial-limb operations a year; Nitsch has made limbs for 14 animals from Ohio, Michigan and West Virginia. 

“I can’t say there is anyone I know that is doing this routinely,” Nitsch said. 

Mocha, the six-year-old llama, broke her right front leg last spring. Owner Linda Kubiak looked out her living room window in Springport, Michigan, and noticed that Mocha was limping. Her leg was dangling. Soon, she was lying helplessly on the ground. 

“In order for her to eat and drink, I would have to hold her head,” Kubiak recalled. “I finally had to get a hoist in the barn. Every other day I had to lift her up to try to strengthen her leg.” 

Kubiak heard about Anderson through a friend and took Mocha to see him. 

Anderson amputated the leg, and Nitsch fitted her with an artificial limb. 

Mocha can now run through the woods and even presents her artificial leg for changing. “She is not suffering. She is happy. Mocha’s going to have a long life,” Kubiak said. 

Anderson said owners turn to artificial limbs because of their attachment to their animals or their desire to preserve them for financial reasons. Llamas are raised for their fur, and animals that lose a limb may not be able to breed. 

“There’s an increasing use of prosthetics,” Anderson said. “Animal owners want to maximise the quality of life for their animals. Owners are no longer willing to accept there’s an artificial limit to an animal’s life.” 

Making and fitting artificial limbs for animals occurs worldwide, according to New Jersey-based O&P Business News, a biweekly publication devoted to orthotics and prosthetics. 

Alan Lipowitz, executive secretary of the American College of Veterinary Surgeons, said he has heard of individual instances of animals being equipped with artificial limbs, but he does not know of anyone who makes a business of it. 

Anderson said loss of a limb can shorten an animal’s life by increasing the stress on other limbs and the joints. That can prevent an animal from standing. 

Nitsch makes the custom-fitted plastic and fibreglass limbs using the same moulding and fitting process he uses for humans. He first makes a cast of what’s left of the animal’s amputated limb, fills the cast with plaster and produces a replica of the leg. 

The replica must then be modified – with the plaster shaved away or filled in – to make sure it bears the animal’s weight in the best way and enables it to walk with a normal gait. That takes several fittings, with the process lasting up to a month. The limb is then secured to the animal with a strap or hinge. 

“The animal can’t tell me it hurts or it’s falling off, so it has to be foolproof,” Nitsch said. “The first few steps they’re trying to kick it off. It takes some animals longer than others to get used to it.” 

Nitsch makes no profit, charging only for labour and materials. For most animals, the cost of a new limb is between US$400 and US$600 (RM1,520 and RM2,280). For horses, the range is US$500 to US$1,000 (RM1,900 to RM3,800). 

Nitsch said he may some day make it a business, but for now will continue to do it out of pure enjoyment. 

“I love what I do. The second thing is I love animals,” he said. “So it kind of fell in line.” 

Tammy Rogers, director of the International Kangaroo Society, said Nitsch provided a prosthetic for Stumpie. 

Rogers, who nurses sick and injured kangaroos back to health at her one-acre (a half hectare) sanctuary in Lancaster, Ohio, said the three-year-old animal could not “posture”, a natural observing position for kangaroos in which they stand on hind legs with their front paws up in the air. “She walked on three feet. She did not hop,” Rogers said. 

To make matters worse, Rogers was forced to prevent the animal from mating because she feared the weight of carrying the offspring in the pouch would be too much for the one-footed mother. 

Since receiving an artificial foot from Nitsch, the kangaroo has been re-energised, has begun to posture again and will be allowed to breed. 

“It gave her confidence,” Rogers said. “You could just see it in her eyes.” – AP