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FORT COLLINS, Colo.—Between them, Sally and Cooper Stoffel now have six legs that are all about the same length.

It wasn’t always that way—while Sally Stoffel has two good legs, Cooper, a Great Dane puppy, spent the first three months of his life with a malformed hind leg.

The leg was accidentally broken shortly after he was born, and it didn’t heal right, especially at the pace he was growing.

But as soon as she met Cooper, rescued from a breeder who might have put him down, Stoffel knew he was special.

“I fell in love with the face of this dog,” Stoffel said. “It was kind of love at first sight.”

Cooper came home with her, and a few days later, he was being examined by veterinarians at CSU’s Veterinary Teaching Hospital in Fort Collins.

Dr. Ross Palmer said Cooper was able to get around just fine on three legs, leaving his “scrawny” leg dangling. He and Stoffel considered amputating the leg and fitting Cooper with a prosthetic.

But then Palmer had an idea: a technique he had first tested out in the 1980s that had since matured. And so in order to save Cooper’s leg, Palmer cut it in half.

He then inserted a metal jack that was screwed to each end of the bone. And every day Stoffel lengthened the jack by about 2 millimeters. The jack isn’t available in the United States, so Palmer borrowed one from a colleague in Milan, Italy.

Over several months, Cooper’s leg slowly grew. Today, the leg is only about an inch shorter than it should be. Cooper is now about 10 1/2 months old and weighs about 130 pounds. He’s not done growing yet, and his hips are about the same height as his owner’s.

In all, the technique grew Cooper’s tibia 76 mm, about 3 inches. Thirty-six millimeters were added as a function of the corrective surgery and 40 mm came from Stoffel’s daily adjustments. The device was removed in August.

Palmer recently checked on the dog’s progress following the $7,000 procedure.

“I’m liking what I’m seeing,” Palmer told Stoffel as they walked Cooper down a hallway.

Stoffel said Cooper loves to run and jump and is using his lengthened leg almost normally.

Depending on how the next few months go, Cooper might need additional corrective work or maybe just an orthopedic “boot,” Palmer said.

“Our goal is life quality and an active lifestyle,” Palmer said. “His limb was becoming a limitation for him.”