Pooh the Amputee Cat Gets Bionic Legs

The cat named Pooh was brought in to a Bulgarian animal shelter with multiple injuries, including two missing legs. Locals thought he might have been the victim of a train, since he hung out near the tracks. Doctors at Central Veterinary thought he was a good candidate for some groundbreaking prosthetic technology. A machine translation from the Bulgarian page on Pooh explains his treatment.

The chance of Pooh is called ITAP prosthetics or placing implants that replace the missing part of a leg directly into the bone.

This is an innovative form of prosthetic limbs, a new medicine for human and animal described isolated cases in the literature.

The aim of the fitting is placing titanium stalk (stem) in bone paw and its subsequent attachment to the outer (exo) prosthesis.

The method has enormous advantages over standard external prostheses in animals that require daily maintenance by the owner to bear is difficult (in cats, even if at all) and often cause complications. With ITAP proteza, all these drawbacks are avoided.

Continued "implementation" of titanium implant in the body is a huge challenge, it happens during a slow process that lasts between 6 and 8 weeks.

Pooh is the first cat in Eastern Europe (and the second cat in all of Europe) to receive two bionic hind legs. According to the shelter's Facebook page, the cost of his surgery has been covered by donations, and he is up for adoption. Read Pooh's story and see plenty of pictures at KittenToob. Through the sequence of pictures, you can see the progress Pooh has made not only in adjusting to new legs, but in his overall health.