Veterinarians recommended that Monika the Russian rescue dog be put down due to injuries to her four legs, but rescuers Marina Gapich and Alla Leonkina had hope for the pup, and after contacting prosthetic expert and vet Sergei Gorshkov, Monika is officially up and walking again with the help of four prosthetic paws.
Monika is the first dog to benefit from Gorshkov’s work, but he has fitted 37 other animals with prosthetics since 2015. The four limbs were 3D printed in the town of Troitstk before being biocoated at Tomsk Polytechnic University. Gapich and Leonkina helped fundraise 400,000 Russian rubles (over $5,400) for the operation.
Now that Monika is recovering and mobile, her rescuers are working with a London-based animal behaviorist to find her a permanent home.