Rosie may become a prosthetic poodle

RACINE - If you don't look at her back half, Rosie looks like any other miniature poodle - cute, petite, with bright brown eyes.

It's her back legs - just like her back story - that are horrific.

Rosie was seized July 23 by the Hot Spring County Sheriff's Department and an anti-cruelty group in Rockport, Ark. She was one of 34 dogs rescued from an unscrupulous breeder's filthy trailer.

The Malvern (Ark.) Daily Record reported, "Many of the dogs were in poor health, covered in feces and urine, and living in cages that in some places were stacked up to the ceiling of the residence."

Rosie - who'd been bred to produce litters of puppies - had arrived with a skin condition, fleas and an ear infection.

Besides all of that, she had a special problem, says Dr. Brian Ray of Belle City Veterinary Hospital in Racine. She had a congenital problem: kneecaps that slide in and out of their joints.

Because that was never surgically corrected, and in view of her caged existence, her hind legs are now horribly twisted. Ray called her problem a "severe grade 4," with 4 being the highest level. She cannot defecate or urinate without soiling herself, and hobbles around on her rear knees.

"The amazing thing is, they bred this dog. Can you believe it?" said Mary Palmer as Rosie was being examined Wednesday. She said Rosie's case was being used to prosecute the breeder.

Palmer is president and founder of Northcentral Maltese Rescue, a Racine-based nonprofit. She accepted Rosie from the Arkansas anticruelty group which had too much on its hands without having to deal with Rosie's special medical problem.

Palmer plans to find a way for her group to pay for whatever comes next. She knows it will likely get very expensive but said, "It's in rough shape, but this is a happy little dog.

"You can't save all of them, I understand that," Palmer said. "But there are some that come along that touch your heart so deeply that you can't turn away.

"We're just jumping in with both feet."

The "both feet" metaphor is ironic considering that Rosie is highly likely to lose two of hers to partial amputation of her deformed limbs.

What comes after that could get very interesting. Joining Ray Wednesday in examining Rosie was Doug Reichert, a licensed prosthetist with Reichert & Kelsey, Kenosha. They are considering having Reichert make Rosie two prosthetic, removable legs.

At one point Rosie tried to thank Reichert for his concern with two air-licks toward his face.

Reichert has never done prosthetics for a nonhuman before, but he thinks he could help. After amputation, he told Ray, "If I have a femur, that's all I need."

If they choose that route, the dog's prosthetics could be something like the leaf-spring prosthetic feet that South African runner Oscar Pistorius has, Reichert said.

Another option being pondered is to get Rosie a cart - essentially replacing her useless rear legs with wheels. By day's end Wednesday, after talking to a cart manufacturer, Ray was leaning toward trying that first.

"If we can avoid surgery it would be best," he said.

"I think it would be the quickest route to having her running around and having some fun."

Posted in Local on Wednesday, August 26, 2009 5:25 pm Updated: 7:34 pm. | Tags: Belle City Veterinary Hospital, Northcentral Maltese Rescue,