Pup Born Without Fully-Formed Paws Gets Prosthetic Paws

This dog now has the chance to stand perfectly, thanks to his new prosthetic paws. Now, Derby can lead the kind of life other dogs live, and he is able to sit and run for the first time in his life, according to FOX News. It was not different from the old one, except that it raised the dog to its proper height.

“He was scooting around on [his] nubs and chest”, Melissa Hannon, who rescued Derby through her organization, Peace and Paws, told ABC News in an interview last December when Derby got his first prosthetic paws. Recently, the company improved upon its first doggy legs, providing Derby’s owner with a high-tech pair of 3D-printed legs that helps him walk, run, and even sit like a normal dog. Now, his upgraded grown-up prosthetic paws allow him to stand at his full height. The dog became famous after he got 3D printed legs, which helped him in walking.

Derby was born with a deformity that affected his two front legs, which end just past the elbow joint and have no paws. Tara Anderson and her team from 3D Systems designed the original prosthetic limbs of the dog.

Tara’s next phase of the project was to level off the dog such that Derby’s back would be straight. We’re happy to see how far Derby has come and love the look of his new futuristic prosthetics.

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.

Born with undeveloped front paws, Derby, a husky-mutt dog, was forced to crawl or walk on his hind legs. Instead of using multijet 3D printing like before, the company turned to selective laser sintering to bring his new legs to life. As his owner, Portonva, states in the brief clip: “Derby took to his new prosthetics very well”.

SLS is a manufacturing process that uses heat to fuse tiny particles of material to create a 3D object. Tara Anderson and her team from 3D Systems designed the original prosthetic limbs of the dog. However, the prosthetic limbs were too short, which prevented the dog from being able to sit like normal dogs do.