Just like in human medicine, sometimes our patients need a blood transfusion. You may wonder where we get the blood. Fortunately, we have a number of very special patients who participate in our blood donor program. These life saving individuals have all been thoroughly tested to make sure that they are healthy and free of blood borne diseases. They are also blood typed, we try to find “universal donors” to minimize the risk of transfusion reactions. When one of our donors gives blood, we can use the whole blood directly to help another patient, or the blood can be processed to produce plasma.  

Whole Blood           Plasma

If your pet may be interested in being a Life Saver, feel free to contact us for information on the screening process. To enroll, all donors must be under seven years of age, in good health, negative for infectious diseases, of a suitable blood type, and have a cooperative temperament. Dogs must be over 50 pounds, and cats must be over 10 pounds.

 
Interestingly, the vast majority of cats are type A.  Type B blood is especially rare and primarily occurs in specific breeds of cat. In dogs there are a vast number of potential blood types.  Donors should at least be negative for Dog Erythrocyte Antigen (DEA) 1.1, but a true universal donor is negative for DEA 1.1, 1.2, 3, 5, & 7. Greyhounds are especially good blood donors because of their high red blood cell counts. 

Meet some of our Life Savers: