Disabled puppy gets a new lease on life with a cart made of toy parts
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All it took was a ferret harness, pipes from a toy welding kit, and wheels from a Fisher-Price helicopter for one woman to channel her inner MacGyver and create a tiny cart that gives a puppy the ability to walk.
Turbo the Chihuahua was deemed a lost cause. He was born without front legs, and all of the veterinarians his owners took him to said they couldn't help, and he would have to be put down. That all changed two weeks ago when Turbo met Amy Birk, practice manager at The Downtown Veterinarian in Indianapolis. "I said, 'I'm not euthanizing this puppy,'" she told Today.com.
Turbo's former owners signed over their rights to Birk, and she got to work caring for the four-week-old, 10-ounce puppy. A disabled dog needs to be at least six months old before it can have a cart made, so Birk and the rest of the crew at The Downtown Veterinarian took matters into their own hands, creating a makeshift cart out of small piece of toys.
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Turbo has made tremendous progress. He now weighs a whopping one pound, is full of energy, and was able to crawl over and put himself on a visitor's arm. "He's got a lot of life in him," Birk said. --Catherine Garcia
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Catherine Garcia has worked as a senior writer at The Week since 2014. Her writing and reporting have appeared in Entertainment Weekly, The New York Times, Wirecutter, NBC News and "The Book of Jezebel," among others. She's a graduate of the University of Redlands and the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.
