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Just like humans, when an animal loses a leg or other important body part, a prosthetic can mean the difference between living a normal life and struggling on a day to day basis. Here are ten stories of animals that suffered loss and then learned to live with a new adaptation to their body.
While some people criticize the efforts put into these prosthetics, particularly in species that are not under threat of extinction, it is important to realize that these developments could help save a critical breeding member of an endangered species one day. Additionally, many of these techniques are brand new and by testing them on animals, researchers are developing useful insights to see if they may one day work on humans. If you end up losing a body part and get a bionic replacement twenty years from now, you might just have a cat or dog to thank for your top-of-the-line prosthetic.
Oscar lost his two rear legs in an accident with a combine harvester. After losing so much blood, his owners were told to expect the worst, but even after he survived the ordeal, their vet warned that cats rarely live happy lives with only two legs. Fortunately, he referred Oscars owners, Kate Allen and Mike Nolan to a veterinary surgeon who specializes in state-of-the-art animal medicine.
After looking at Oscar’s situation, Dr. Noel Fitzpatrick agreed to take on the new patient, surgically fitting him with implants that can eventually be attached to prosthetic paws. The surgery makes Oscar a notable kitty as he is the first cat to ever have prosthetic paws.
While the process was a success, Oscar’s paws haven’t yet been perfected for outdoor use. He has been made to be a house cat for the rest of his life, but really…that’s not all that bad now is it, especially when you consider how he was injured in the first place.
The first animal to receive such treatment though was Storm, a Belgian Sheperd, who lost his paw after it became infected with a tumor. The same vet that would later provide Oscar with his bionic paws, Noel Fitzpatrick, was the first to offer this service to any animal and Storm was the perfect candidate. Fitzpatrick says that he hopes his developments can eventually be used to help soldiers returning from Iraq and victims of the July 7th bombings in London.
Earlier this year, Naki’o became the first dog in the world to be fitted with a full set of bionic paws from Orthopets, a leader in the pet prosthetics industry. Far from just helping him walk easier, the paws are so well attached that he can now run and swim just as he did before the accident. Naki’o lost his paws due to severe frostbite after his previous owners abandoned him to fend for himself throughout the freezing winter in Nebraska. Despite the fact that the poor pup had to crawl on his stomach to move, he still found a loving adoptive family who worked tirelessly to raise the money to get Naki’o the prosthetics he desperately needed. Their efforts paid off as Naki’o is now thrilled to have his bionic paws and is eager to run, jump and fetch with his new family.
Eagles love to perch outside of YouTube user pla1554alaska’s home. So do her cats, Gizmo and Suitcase. They’ve all managed to get along, even hang out within inches of each other.
-via Althouse
Wildlife photographer Markus Varesvuo snapped this amazing picture of a herring gull attacking an eagle. Gulls often join together to drive predators away from breeding grounds, but sometimes solitary gulls do the dirty work, too. For the greatest impact, they swoop in from above and behind a bird of prey.
Link -via Marginal Revolution | Photographer’s Website
Thanks to a webcam set up in Decorah, Iowa, you can watch Bald Eagle babies hatch live. Two of the three eggs have hatched, so while you wait for the last one to make its debut, you can entertain yourself by watching the fuzzy gray baby birds. You never know what you’re going to get, though – the other day, the eagles brought a dead rabbit back to the nest and ate it.
At about six feet across and deep, the nest weighs about 1.5 tons. It’s in a cottonwood tree about 80 feet off the ground and was first built there by the eagles in 2007 after the first one fell in a storm.
The salmon are returning to spawn in Dutch Harbor, Alaska, so it’s time for eagles to descend upon the town. Lots of them, many of them bald eagles. They’re quite fearless, so YouTube user Honanooligans was able to get close. There’s a particularly good scene at 5:15. A fox arrives on the scene at 7:50.
via Super Punch
Neatorama has featured a number of stories about animals who have received prosthetics before, including Beauty the Bald Eagle, who lost her beak when it was shot by a hunter. WebEcoist has a great collection of these stories including many you probably haven’t seen yet.
Yes, we all know music largely revolves around sex, drugs and rock and roll, but sometimes it’s hard to actually tell which one the band is talking about. Here are six songs with meanings you may not have originally guessed.
“Got To Get You Into My Life” by The Beatles
This track really sounds like a love song written for a love interest with lyrics like, “Ooh, I suddenly see you/Ooh, did I need you/Every single day of my life.” Despite how it sounds though, this one is about the first time Paul tried marijuana and his instant love affair with the drug. What more would you expect from soneone who also named a romantic love song (Martha My Dear) after his dog?
Source Image Via Gonzalo Barrientos [Flickr]
“Motorhead” by Hawkwind and Motorhead
Even a lot of Motorhead fans don’t actually know that the name is a slang for a speedfreak. Lemmy wrote the song for the group Hawkwind first and then took it to be the title song for his post-Hawkwind group. Here’s some of the song’s lyrics that really give it away, “Motorhead, you can call me Motorhead, alright/ Brain dead, total amnesia/ Get some mental anesthesia.”
Source
“Hey Mr. Tambourine Man” by Bob Dylan
This one’s a little less certain. You see, although it is widely accepted that this song is about a man looking to score from his dealer, Bob claims none of his songs are about drug use. While I’m usually inclined to accept the artist’s word on his own songs, Mr. Dylan also claims that “Rainy Day Women # 12 & 35” A.K.A. “Everybody Gets Stoned” is especially not about drugs. I may be able to concede that he may have meant the song to be more about stonings and social outcasting, I have a hard time accepting a poet as prolific and intelligent as Bob Dylan didn’t realize and fully intend the double meaning of the chorus.
Source Image Via MarkyBon [Flickr]
“Hotel California” by The Eagles
With lyrics like “you can check out anytime, but you can never leave,” it’s easy to see why so many people associated the song with drug use. The reality is that the song is more about the hedonism of the Southern California lifestyle the group was exposed to in the seventies, which, to be fair, did include heavy drug use. Still, the drugs would be no more than a minor part of the song’s deeper meaning. Eagles drummer and writer Don Henley, said it was “basically a song about the dark underbelly of the American dream and about excess in America, which is something we knew a lot about.”
Source Image Via Saguayo [Flickr]
“Mirror in the Bathroom” by The English Beat
While many people assume any songs involving mirrors, particularly when the mirror is in a bathroom, must be references to cocaine, this one is actually about narcissism. The writer, Dave Wakeling, said he was inspired to write the song while he was looking in the mirror at himself debating whether or not he could skip work that day. He then started thinking about the self-involvement and narcissism. The line about “a restaurant that’s got glass tables” was actually a direct reference to a fancy restaurant that opened near him that, would you guess it, had glass tables. Funny enough, the success of the song may have helped lead the band into cocaine addictions; Dave later remarked about it that, “songs can become sort of strangely prophetic.”
Source
“Puff the Magic Dragon” by Peter, Paul and Mary
This song really is about a growing up and abandoning an imaginary friend who happens to be a dragon. Although it’s merely a tale of lost childhood innocence, the release of the song in the drug-fueled sixties led to many people assuming that anything with the word “puff” was actually a reference to marijuana. Co-writer Leonard Lipton once said, “I can tell you that at Cornell in 1959 [when the song was written], no one smoked grass.” So, if you were hoping for the song to actually have been about drugs, you almost certainly have already lost that childhood innocence referenced in the song.
Source Image Via CelestialSpirit13 [Flickr]
