Dog gets new lease of life after being fitted with prosthetic legs after brutal machete attack

Video report by ITV Granada's Lauren Ostridge

A dog who lost his legs in a machete attack has been given a new lease of life - after specially made prosthetics were crafted to allow him to run around.

Cola was just nine-months-old when he was left abandoned in a Bangkok gutter with his front legs hacked off in a response to chewing his neighbour's shoes.

Despite being left for dead, he was taken in by retirees John and Gill Dalley, who had set up the Soi Dog Foundation in Phuket, to help Thailand's stray dogs.

Gill, who passed away from cancer in February 2017, had also lost her legs years after contracting septicaemia trying to rescue a dog from a flooded field, and felt an immediate affinity with Cola.

They quickly formed an unbreakable bond and she made it her mission to get Cola a pair of prosthetics makeshift prosthetic legs to allow him to run around.

"We don't like to have favourites, but to say he was Gill's is true," John said.

"She only had him for about nine months before she passed away, but he was a special one because they had so much in common.

"She made it her mission to get him some legs, and even asked her prosthetist if he could make some legs for Cola."

Now, John and Cola are back in the UK, and after many long walks and trips to the beach in Hornsea, Yorkshire, where they are living, his original prosthetics are a little worse for wear.

Facing the prospect of being entirely housebound, John reached out to those around him, and after hearing his story, Stockport consultant Toby Carllson stepped in to help.

"Cola is the first dog, he may even be my first animal, I've ever designed prosthetics for," Toby said.

"I'm hoping the prosthetics will be really important for Cola and will be an improvement on what he's had before.

"He's a very compliant patient, he doesn't voice his opinion - he's very obliging and tries very hard for us.

"It's hard not to have him as our favourite."

John says there was no way he was leaving Cola behind when he left Thailand, and the prosthetics give him a lease of life "like any normal dog".

"At home he just gets around kangaroo style," John added.

"But the highlight of his day is going out for a proper walk, he loves to go for a walk, without prosthetics there is no way he could do that because he needs to be able to walk properly.

"He'll go out for an hour and a half and you'll see him running up cliffs like any other dog, running, chasing, playing with the other dogs just like the others, having prosthetics gives him his life back.

"Sadly the ones he has are very warn and are, literally, on their last legs, so getting new ones like this will give him another lease of life.

"He's incredible, he's quite a star when other dog walkers see him, they find it incredible. People don't expect him to be able to do that."

It is hoped Cola’s brand new prosthetics will last him a few years at least - or 1,000 walks.