Abandoned baby fox who can’t use her back legs given special wheelchair

By Aidan Milan

A baby fox who’s been disabled from birth has been given her own little wheelchair to help her learn to use her legs.

Red fox Asia was found abandoned by a couple in Lexington, Kentucky while they were out walking.

She was brought to the Kentucky Wildlife Center, where she’s undergoing physical therapy in a bid to make her stronger.

Asia’s primary carer, PK Blankenship, said: ‘Asia currently uses the wheelchair to ambulate her pelvis and hind limbs, which provides both support and helps drive movement forward.

‘I do therapy with her every day. This consists of 15 to 20 minutes of targeting movement with her back legs.

‘All these movements help Asia’s brain to learn to reconnect and to understand how to move her legs.

‘She also has free time outside on a harness and lead, to play around and just be a young fox.

‘Other days she can zip and zoom around our break room being silly.’

Little Asia also goes into a chamber for hyperbaric oxygen therapy (HBOT) every week, which helps reduce inflammation and pain as well as speed up the healing process.

PK said: ‘For Asia in particular, we are trying to heal her spine and the nerves that go to her back legs to increase the healing time and get her back to normal functions as soon as possible.

‘Asia has now received three treatments in the last three weeks, and we have seen great improvement in the movement of her hind legs.

‘Sadly, Asia won’t be released back into the wild, because she will have been raised by her human caregivers, and will have become accustomed to me, and all those that are in her life.

‘Even if she were to gain use of her hind legs, we do not know what caused her condition and don’t know if it could occur again, which would leave her defenceless to flee from predators and find food.

‘Some people may say we should have just let nature take its course but in this case, we are doing what we believe is right for Asia.

‘She is happy, bright, alert and responsive to her environment, eating, drinking, growing, and acting like a young fox kit would, just all without the use of her back legs.

‘What we can and will always guarantee is we will never force anything upon her and that we will love Asia unconditionally and give her all the means necessary to grow and be happy.

‘She will always have a loving home here.’

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