Lumen walks up on her tiptoes
sort of like a ballerina with pointe shoes.
She was born without her main paw pad on all four feet,
and that’s the weight-bearing pad.
She doesn’t have any toes.
Lumen is growing at an alarming rate.
She’s a Great Dane,
so she’s going to be well over 100 pounds once she’s full-grown.
Christine and I have been at Luvable Dog Rescue for about six years.
We received a message that
a Great Dane puppy was abandoned in a box in Tijuana, Mexico.
And she was born with deformities, and is deaf.
I instantly wanted to go scoop her right up.
Lumen was really nervous when she came home.
She definitely hadn’t spent time around other dogs.
Atticus seems to have taken on the big brother role with Lumen.
And we’ve noticed already that Lumen and Wicket,
our foster puppy that was born with no eyes,
have become best friends.
And the pack has been a huge help to Lumen
in helping her discover herself.
She’s growing more emotionally,
and just flourishing from the relationships.
Lumen has such a fighter spirit.
She’s just raring to play with her pack,
and doesn’t want to be slowed down.
Our vet advised that we get her in to see an orthopedic specialist,
who felt like she wouldn’t make it past six months old.
And advised that we euthanize her.
It was a really devastating meeting.
So we’re going to get a second opinion.
They felt like we could do some surgery
to create toes.
We are not giving up on her.
They have told us Lumen won’t be able to walk within the next month
if she doesn’t get surgery right away.
So at this point surgery feels like the only option for Lumen.
Lumen’s doing a great job at healing.
She acts like she didn’t even just have surgery.
- We’ve got to go home, weirdo.
- Everyone has taken such good care of her
that she didn’t even want to leave the hospital after her surgery.
- Lumen, you don’t want to leave the office?
Come on. Good girl.
Hey, I’ll go with you in your truck. [Laughing]
- You can work for me.
- It’s been about six months since Lumen’s last surgery.
Even though the surgeries helped,
she still doesn’t have the ability
to distribute her weight on her feet like a normal dog.
So we’d like to be able to get her some prosthetics
so that she can use those to go outside
and experience more of the world.
Now that she has prosthetics
she can join the pack like a regular dog.
And it’s just changing her life by opening up her world.
Lumen’s going through constant growth spurts.
So her feet are growing and changing all the time.
She’s going through prosthetics like crazy.
When they break or she outgrows them,
we sort of have a little hiatus
where she doesn't get to wear them for a while.
She’s stuck inside more.
She definitely gets really bummed out
when the other dogs go outside without her and she can't join them.
It’s definitely a helpless feeling
when we can tell that she just wants to be able to go outside,
and play and be normal.
We try to make up for it with enrichment and games inside,
but nothing will ever be the same as running outside with her pack.
- Good morning, Lumen.
Now we’re making some of Lumen’s meds.
She gets meds twice a day.
- Now that Lumen’s full-grown,
we definitely are seeing a lot more issues with her feet
than when she was a small puppy.
But as of right now,
she still has a great quality of life.
As long as Lumen’s fighting for herself,
we’re going to keep fighting for her.
It’s really funny now that Lumen has gotten so much bigger than Atticus.
He still plays with her like she’s a tiny puppy,
but she can just bowl him right over
since she’s three times his size.
- Derrick at Bionic Pets
has been working on orthotics since Lumen was a puppy.
He’s making a brand-new design just for Lumen.
He hasn’t tried this out on any of his other patients yet,
so we’re really excited to see if this style will work for her.
- Come on.
Good!
[Laughing]
Yay Lumen!
Can you get your rope?
Yeah?
- This new orthotic design basically suspends her feet
so that she’s not actually putting all of the pressure down on her toes.
But with that,
there is a lot of weight bearing around the joists.
- It’s already cracking.
Is that from her weight?
- Wow, okay.
- Yeah, I was like, oh man, already?
- We’ll get her. We’re getting closer.
My hope is that we can keep building upon this design.
That’s what I want to do.
- We’re going to send those back to Derrick,
and hopefully he can seal those back up
and get something a little sturdier for her.
- All right guys, ready? We’re going to the pole barn.
- Here in Oregon it definitely rains most of the year.
So we built a pole barn that has an agility course inside.
So it’s kind of like a fun playground
where the dogs could still go run and play,
and even if it’s kind of yucky outside.
Definitely one of the most exciting parts of the day,
but Lumen’s always left out.
The gravel is really hard on her feet.
And if she goes just even one time, she’ll start developing ulcers.
- The other dogs get worried when she’s upset.
And she definitely feels sad when she can’t join the fun.
So hopefully we’ll get the orthotics,
and we can start having Lumen run around with her pack.
- It’s now sunny out, and beautiful weather.
And Lumen is just dying to get outside,
because everybody is having so much fun outside without her.
- Lumen’s prosthetics arrived today. We’re so excited!
Your prosthetics arrived!
- So we are definitely anxious to get the next set of prosthetics on her
so that she can enjoy the summer with the rest of the pack.
- So pretty!
- Unicorns and donuts?
Ready?
Let’s roll.
All right, Lumen!
- I’m trying to figure out why her left foot is twisting more than that one.
- Yeah, I don’t like the way it’s moving at all.
- It definitely isn’t fitting in there exactly like it should.
- It may be a bit too narrow.
- We’re not sure if Lumen’s feet have changed a little bit,
or what’s fitting differently,
but this left one isn’t fitting on quite like it should.
Her foot is sort of pivoting
in a sideways position.
- It’s kind of a trial and error game,
but getting something to work exactly right has been really difficult.
And that’s just sort of the name of the game with prosthetics, it seems like.
- Lumen obviously is so excited to be out in the backyard,
but her foot and her gait is definitely off.
We wish that everything could just work for her the way we want it to.
- So we just got Lumen’s prosthetics back.
One of the problems is it’s kind of too hard
to compress this area together.
So what I need to do is make it so this shell comes in a little.
We’ve got to get the angles right on them.
We’re going to add some pads to the inside,
and add some straps that are static.
That don’t stretch.
I’m not giving up on Lumen.
She’s an awesome dog.
And here we are.
Lumen’s newly modified prosthetic legs.
And ready to ship them out.
So let’s do it.
- They’re here!
Ooh, those look like good ones!
Got the right foot on.
Good girl.
Are you ready for your left foot?
That looks great.
All right.
Going up.
You’re so excited.
You know where we’re going, don’t you?
So excited!
Yay pole barn!
- Come on! Come on, this way!
- She’s so happy.
Are you excited, Lumen?
- It’s been such an incredible journey
since the day we brought Lumen home.
She has grown and developed into such a beautiful dog.
She’s just so happy and full of life.
She still has that puppy enthusiasm
for everything that she does and gets to be a part of.
And we just want to give her the best experiences possible.