Collaborative project aims to improve quality of life for rescued canine

This project started around Holly, which was a MDL dog at the veterinary school. And she was a amputee of her back leg. And Holly had a lot of problems around the house. And one of these main problems was balancing during car rides. So due to her lack of her back leg, she kind of didn't have the same, you know, balance as a lot of other dogs. The main point of our project was to create an apparatus for her to help her balance, and it would also help her sit. So, I want to do small animal rehabilitation and sports medicine. So I'm kind of interested in all the biomechanics and, you know, all the, you know, prosthetics and orthotics, but instead of a human perspective, from a veterinary perspective. And I kind of started doing research on who around campus does stuff like this, and I came across e-NABLE. We are a charitable organization that makes assisted technology devices for the community and Virginia as a whole. We've never worked with the vet school before. This is the first project we've ever done in collaboration with them to get that veterinary perspective. It's really...it kind of has expanded the game for our organization. This is the first project that we've worked on an animal, which is kind of different because you can't exactly go to the animal and be like, "So, does it work ?" or anything like that. It's definitely more trial and error. It's not necessarily a prosthesis in the fact that we're replacing her whole leg, but it's more like a apparatus that fits snug to the bottom half of her body like a diaper. And we're also going to have the padding, which is kind of weighted material that replaces where her leg once was. And all that's gonna be sewed together and accessible for the owners of the dog to kind of adjust it as needed. Everybody is very excited to actually see this into, like, a physical kind of prototype. Because it's all been ideas and testing so far, and so being able to see it on a dog model and finally have something that is tangible is really exciting. That's the big thing with e-NABLE is there isn't really a project too small for us. I'd like to think it was sort of an ambitious project to take on to begin with as never working with animals. So it really was kind of like, I think we can do this. We have the interest for it. We have the resources to do it. So let's do it, and let's make it happen. It's amazing, you know, I'm blessed that Holly's owners were so, you know, willing to allow us to create this device. It's cool. You know, I'm blessed every day. You know, I love being a veterinary student. I love, you know, being a future veterinarian, and I hope to see more cases like this in the future.