Derrick Campana is an animal orthodontist who creates orthodontic appliances and prosthetics to help increase animals’ mobility and improve their lives. According to the Washington Business Journal, Derrick is one of ten people worldwide who make custom animal prostheses. It’s amazing that animals with prosthetic limbs can move. These few people have a profound impact.
About 12 years ago, a veterinarian came to see him and took a look at his prosthetic. The vet was impressed and asked Derrick if he would be willing to make a prosthetic leg for a dog. In an interview with SPE, Derrick recalls speaking directly to the vet: “I can try to help you. But I’ve never worked with dogs before.
So he tried it and the prosthetic worked for the dog. Then Derrick got the brilliant idea to start a business manufacturing animal prostheses. “I’m sure there are a lot of animals in need of help,” he said. And he was right! Derrick currently runs Animal Ortho Care and to date he estimates he has made more than 25,000 animal prostheses worldwide. “We get emails every day on all sorts of devices, from turtles to deer and raccoons. I made an elephant in Thailand, a ram in Spain. Goats, sheep, llamas. Name it, we probably did.
Derrick travels the world installing equipment for weakened animals. His company, Bionic Pets, manufactures a variety of mobility devices. The website is bionicpets.org.
“Most of the cases I deal with, I’ve never met them,” he said. “So we send these fiberglass molded kits around the world, and a lot of times pet owners or veterinarians do a cast on an animal, and that’s the first time they do the casting, and a lot of times we don’t.” didn’t get the best role,” he smiled.
“And we have to take that mold and turn it into something that can help animals. … Doing it in the mail and helping animals in this way can be really difficult – which is why so few of us do it.
He explained: Prosthetics refer to the replacement of limbs; Braces are orthodontic appliances. Derrick often travels around the country with what he calls a “mobile member lab”. “I went straight to the family, straight to the people, launched it, built the equipment and put the animal in place. It must be so. That’s a better way to do it.
Although Derrick and his company had a hard time eliminating Covid-19, he said, “Now I’m living my dream. I pinch myself every day doing this – using my hands to help animals, help animals and families recover. We couldn’t do better than that