Derby The Dog’s 3D Printed Legs Get Even More Awesome

Tara Anderson designed a prosthetic limb for a dog named Derby who was born with underdeveloped paws and legs. However, the first pair of prosthetic legs were not flawless, as they did not allow the dog to stand at his full height.

Now Derby has an upgrade with grown-up prosthetic paws.

But now he can finally run like an ordinary dog after 3D printing experts fashioned him a pair of new legs.

Since Derby was born without fully-formed front paws, he was forced to crawl and exert mainly his hind legs to get around.

Although he was part Husky, Derby was still a mutt, and adding to that his partly developed front legs which didn’t allow him to do any of the regular dog stuff, he would have been eventually put down.

His first set of prosthetic paws allowed him to get around on all fours but kept him hunched forward. “He’s walking in a straight line and he’s sitting like a real dog sits, like he hasn’t really been able to do”. In order to help him, Sherry Portanova together with Tara Anderson, from 3D Systems, sought to give the gentle dog a fighting chance. As his owner, Portonva, states in the brief clip, “Derby took to his new prosthetics very well”.

The team that created the paws said there first design was not successful therefore they used a new harder material and a knee-like structure to give Derby more stability in their second design.

We here at CapitalBerg are proud to have the first adorable animal story this year. The team managed to design a whole new prosthetic system using a whole new 3D printing technology called Selective Laser Sintering.

It basically creates a 3D object by fusing tiny particles. The result are the taller white figure-eight prosthetics you see here that allow Derby to get around much better than ever.

Details of the prosthetic paws, as well as the obstacles faced with the original designs have been released in a video by 3D Systems. However, the prosthetic limbs were too short, which prevented the dog from being able to sit like normal dogs do.