NY shelter dog gets new lease on life with teen’s 3D printed prosthetic leg
A three-legged shelter dog is getting a new lease on life thanks to a high school robotics whiz and the 3D printed prosthetic leg she dreamed up to help the pooch get adopted more easily.
The heartwarming story started when a school counselor approached 16-year-old Southampton High School Robotics team leader Sarah Barros with an extraordinary opportunity to put her skills to the test.
“[The counselor said] ‘I know you’re very interested in design engineering. I heard about this great opportunity from a friend that there’s a dog at the shelter who might need a leg, and this is a cool project you could take on,'” Barros said in a “Fox & Friends First” interview on Tuesday.
“I saw no reason why I shouldn’t. It was really a fun journey.”
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New York teen Sarah Barros designed a 3D printed prosthetic limb for pitbull mix Tryla. (Amy Beth Stern)
Tryla – the friendly a six-year-old pitbull mix at the center of the story – is speculated to have lost her front right leg after being hit by a car when she was younger. The owner who could no longer care for her brought her to the Southampton Animal Shelter Foundation in Hampton Bays, New York two years ago, the New York Post reported.
Seated with Tryla resting on her lap, Barros shared how she raised money to fund the materials for the project, poured research into weight distribution in dogs, focused on measurements and went through the trial and error process to get everything just right.
Some models would pinch or irritate Tryla’s skin. Others failed to fully take her other joints into account.
Amy Beth Stern of New York’s Southampton Animal Shelter Foundation said the right model has helped Tryla achieve better stability and be more active throughout the day.
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Pitbull mix Tryla is speculated to have lost her left front leg after being hit by a car when she was younger. (Fox & Friends First/Screengrab)
“She is an absolute darling, and it’s hard for individuals to sort of see past that extra effort that you have to put in for a dog with special needs,” Stern told Fox News.
“We here at the Southampton Animal Shelter Foundation focus a lot on senior dogs and dogs with special needs and anything that sort of helps them along, whether it’s medication or a prosthetic leg, something that helps the animal live a better life and makes it easier on an owner will certainly help with applications and adoption.”
Tryla still resides at the Long Island shelter and is looking for her forever home. Stern says the “wonderful, sweet” furry friend likes her attention and would likely benefit most from a household with no other dogs.
“She likes her humans a lot. [She needs] someone who can exercise her and have patience with the fact that she does need a little bit of extra assistance. She needs to get her exercise to stay on the healthy weight side because her impairment can sort of lead to weight gain because she can’t be as active as some of the other dogs for as long of a period of time. But [she needs] someone who’s going to love her the way we do.”
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