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Three New Mexico Military Institute cadets are working on a class project to help a dog and the family that took her in this summer.
First Lt. Taven Cunningham of San Ramon, California; 1st Sgt. Rodrigo Parra-Perez of Sonora, Mexico; and Sgt. 1st Class Vincent Joel Carpio-Torres of Puerto Rico and St. Croix are students in the school’s Engineering Design course. Cunningham and Carpio-Torres are in junior college, while Parra-Perez is a senior in high school.
They are working with Lt. Col. John Surgett, the course instructor, and other Institute faculty this semester to design and build a prosthetic paw for Peggy, who is missing bones to form a paw in her right front limb.
Maj. Conrad Harter and Cpt. Pamela Harter, both history teachers at the Institute, said they rescued Peggy as a stray and that she was in her current condition.
“She just came by our house one day,” said Conrad Harter, who added that he is not sure if he and his wife will keep Peggy or rehome her to another family who has expressed interest in taking her.
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“One of the issues is that we have a lot of stairs and she doesn’t do well with stairs,” he said.
Peggy is able to walk and swim, but some situations can be a challenge for her, Harter said.
“She is OK on smooth or soft surfaces, but she does not like gravel,” he said. “I have a lot of gravel.”
He said that multiple veterinarians have looked at Peggy, who have estimated her at 5 to 7 years old and described her as a spaniel mix. Surgett said that local vet Dr. David Orton is working with the cadets, volunteering his services to examine and provide X-rays for free of Peggy’s left front foot.
Harter said that he had been told by veterinarians that the missing bones could be due to a birth defect or an amputation that occurred at least a year before he found her. The cadets said that, based on Dr. Orton’s information and the X-rays showing bones that taper to a point, they are working with the assumption that Peggy’s phalanges in the right paw never developed due to a birth defect.
“She still has the metacarpal pad, the soft part of the paw,” said Cunningham, which he and the other cadets said is another indication to them that the missing phalanges are probably a birth defect.
Surgett said he and the cadets are planning to have a final prosthetic designed by the end of the semester, which is in December.
“I think it will take several iterations before we get a final design that will work for the long-term because dogs like to chew stuff,” said Surgett.
Students in previous Engineering Design courses, which Surgett describes as a more “open” course than many other Institute classes, have designed and built the Bronco Blocker, a sports training machine that throws volleyballs so that student-athletes can practice blocking spikes. He and students also have made 3-D printed ear guards to hold face masks.
The cadets in this semester’s class have worked with Peggy on measurements, which in itself requires some skill.
“She is not a good patient,” Harter said. “She is good in that she will stay, but she doesn’t like it.”
They also have researched other devices and plan to talk online soon with a Dallas, Texas, doctor who designs human prosthetics and has agreed to help them.
Surgett said most of their cadets’ time during classes on Tuesdays and Thursdays has been involved in developing concepts about designs and materials, which he said is the most important part of the process.
“They’ve spent hours in here trying to come up with something,” he said. “They want something unique, something that they have made but something that Peggy will take. There just aren’t a lot of prosthetics for animals out there because there isn’t a lot of need for them. So they are more or less looking at human prosthetics and trying to develop and modify those for the dog.”
Parra-Perez added that previously developed dog prosthetics aren’t applicable.
“Most of the prosthetics we have seen are for dogs missing their whole leg,” he said. “We have to work from scratch to make something specific for her.”
Based on their work so far, they’ve developed computer models of some concepts and created two rough prototypes using 3D printers. The final product probably will be produced by the Institute’s carbon fiber printer, they said.
The first two prototypes have curved bottoms, sort of like miniature skis. One has a tread similar to a tire and the other has a foam pad. Cunningham said that they want the pad to be replaceable or even interchangeable with various designs so that the prosthetic will last a long time.
“This part will be able to be replaced, the soles, the part that actually makes contact with the ground,” he said. “So you can just swap that out.”
The cadets said that they know that they need a prosthetic paw that provides a bit of friction, but they also need to create a device that does not add much length to the limb so as not to cause an unnatural shift of the dog’s shoulder.
At this time, they think they should have a prototype ready around Thanksgiving for Peggy to try for a while.
Cunningham, Carpio-Torres and Parra-Perez said that this is the first time that they have undertaken a design and engineering project like this.
“The good thing is we have a lot of resources on campus,” Cunningham said. “We’ve had at least three or four teachers help out so far on this whole process. If we were doing this by ourselves, I’m not sure that we could finish it.”
Lisa Dunlap can be reached at 575-622-7710, ext. 351, or at reporter02@rdrnews.com.
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October 31, 2021 at 11:13AM
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NMMI cadets work to create new paw for rescued dog - Roswell Daily Record
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