The triumph of Teo two-legs

I wasn’t paying much attention to anything except this dog, Teo. Milton Cadiz, his owner, was explaining to me what had happened. I knew it was something bad, because the little guy had only two legs. A car had hit him. They had to amputate his two back legs. But the interesting thing was, his rear end was held up by the wheels of a specially-made mini-cart. The wheels got his tummy off the ground and made it easier for him to haul himself along. “Oh yes, he still has problems,’ said Milton, “like when he needs to pee against a tree, he can’t lift his leg. We have to have the right kind of wipes on hand to eliminate the special smells of dog urine. All he did before was drag his belly and make it bleed. Now he can bounce and roll along with us almost at natural speed. He is such a happy little guy.”

Milton said he and his wife Vanessa picked up Teo as a rescue dog from Tijuana, and then started scrolling through a TV show, The Wizard of Paws (on BYUtv). That’s how they found out about its star, Derrick Campana, who had been making orthotic and prosthetic devices for humans until he discovered the need for artificial limbs for animals. Now, Campana and his mobile “limb lab” tour the country as part of a limb-fitting company called “Bionic Pets.” He partly finances his work by turning it into his own TV show, and his producers claim Bionic Pets has helped 25,000 animals since 2005. That number includes four elephants, plus a whale in need of an artificial fin.

I was surprised by how moving it was to see Teo hauling his wheel-supported rear end under coffee tables and up to street trees to smell the calling cards of other dogs, even if he couldn’t exactly lift his own leg. “That’s the thing,” said Milton. “He’ll always need help, but he can wheel around. He can smell, he can come up to people. He’s happy.”

Campana even built a seamobile for Teo — actually an upside-down frisbee that makes it possible for Teo to actually swim.

So is all this humanity, or insanity? Don’t even ask the Cadizes. Vanessa is a nursing assistant. Milton is a physical therapy aid. The last two years have been filled with covid stress for them. Teo, for all the extra work he entails — like diaper changes or fitting him into his wheels — has turned into a kind of therapy for both of them.