A three-year-old Vincent, a domestic short hair cat, was fitted with a rare set of titanium alloy prosthetic legs. The cat, which was brought into the shelter with severe abnormalities in its back legs, caught the attention of a woman named Cindy who works in the shelter.
After series of physical therapy which did not yield the needed results, the woman’s daughter introduced the cat to Serah Berg, a veterinary doctor at Lloyd Veterinary Medical Center at Iowa State University.
After some careful examinations, Berg decided that artificial legs would be the best alternatives for Vincent to regain its normal life. “Normally a cat like him that came into a shelter would not have a future because his injuries were pretty staggering,” Jones said. “But, you do what you do to make your animal successful.”
Vincent was first operated on in 2014 after Bergh worked to develop titanium alloy impacts that were inserted into his femur and designed to allow his bones to grow.
“His bone is looking great. The implants are stable and he’s walking really well on them,” she said. “I couldn’t be happier with how he’s doing at the time.
Though the cat can walk as it is now but he is yet to start jumping as cats normally does.
“I anticipate that he’ll be jumping and doing really normal cat things very soon,” said Bergh.
Bergh has the confidence that enough has been learn operating on this cat and looks forwards to having other cases as this to be helped with what they had learned.
“What we’ve learned, just through Vincent’s one case, we’ve actually refined the technique and the implants so the next cases we do moving forward will be even more successful,” she said.
“It’s extremely rare. In fact, I’d guess there are probably less than 25 animals in the world who ever had anything quite like what he’s got,” said Dr. Mary Sarah Berg.