Miniature Pet Donkey Gets Prosthetic Leg
Tracy and Steven Amonette were faced with a heart-wrenching decision five years ago when their beloved miniature donkey, Stitches, got his hoof stuck in a door and lost part of his right rear leg.
Doctors said that Stitches should be euthanized. The Botetourt County, Va., couple fitted him with a custom-made prosthetic leg instead.
“Look at him,” Tracy said Wednesday at an event hosted by Virginia Prosthetics in Roanoke, Va. “How could I put him down?”
The 15-year-old Sicilian miniature donkey received a prosthesis this spring after doctors at Virginia-Maryland Regional College of Veterinary Medicine in Blacksburg suggested that the Amonettes try something different from the leather boot the donkey had been wearing for years.
“They called me because they knew I liked animals,” Sidney Nicely, a prosthetist at Virginia Prosthetics, said. “Because of being an amputee, I wanted to use my hands to do something that helped people.”
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