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Transfusions & Donor Program

Transfusions

Just as blood transfusions can be life-saving in humans, they also can be life-saving for dogs and cats. There are many reasons that a dog or cat may need a transfusion. Most commonly, pets are transfused with packed red blood cells or whole blood because they are anemic. Sometimes, we administer plasma to provide blood clotting factors. We purchase the majority of our blood products from a veterinary blood bank and store them for use when the need arises. However, we also have blood donors available that can donate a fresh unit of whole blood.

Blood Donor Program

If you have a young, healthy pet that might make a good donor, please review the requirements below and contact us.

Feline Blood Donor Requirements

Canine Blood Donor Requirements

Blood Donor Screening Process

To start the screening process, we draw a blood sample from your pet and perform an in-house blood typing test. This requires a small amount of blood and can be done while you wait. We need cats of both blood types for our program. Because dogs have seven blood types, blood typing is more complicated. If your dog is negative on the in-house typing test, we draw more blood to send to a laboratory where he/she can be fully screened for the six other types. We look for dogs that can be universal donors. If tests come back positive for the above tests, unfortunately we will not be able to include your dog in our program.

Once typing has determined that your pet is an acceptable donor, more blood samples are drawn to ensure they are healthy and do not carry any infectious diseases that could be transmitted by transfusion.

All of the above testing is done at no cost to you and you will receive copies of all results for your records. A complete physical examination is also performed by a board certified internal medicine specialist each time your pet comes in for donation. Blood screening is repeated annually.

If your pet fits all of the above criteria, he/she will be accepted into the blood donor program. Your name and phone number will be added to our program guide so that you can be called to bring in your donor as needed. We will not call you more often than every 2 months (usually less often). It may rarely require late night or early morning calls. If this is a problem, we can make special arrangements.