Our hospital uses blood products to save animals every day. Whether its in emergency surgery or in our ICU, blood and plasma transfusions are an extremely important treatment for our critical patients. Our blood donor program allows pets and pet owners to become a part of this process.
We are looking for qualified canines and felines for our program on a continual basis. If you have a healthy dog (must weigh at least 50 lbs) or cat (must weigh at least 10 lbs) and they are 1 to 7 years old, you may apply to become a part of our program. Based upon the answers you provide on the application form, your pet could meet criteria to move on to be tested for the universal blood types. Once you fill our the form, we will contact those who may qualify. Additional testing will be provided to those pets.
Benefits for Blood Donors and Owners - knowledge that your pet will help treat a critical patient and potentially save their life, a free tag that states your pet is a Blood Donor, free 8 pound bag of Royal Canin food for each donation, free initial testing and free blood product equal to the amount donated if the need ever arises.
Blood Donation Process
Once your pet is determined to be a qualified blood donor, you can expect to be called to donate blood once every 4 to 8 weeks up until age 7 when a pet usually retires from the program. For each donation visit, your pet will be expected to stay with us for several hours. We prep your pet by shaving the site of the blood draw, inserting a needle in the vein and then drawing the blood into the blood collection bag. After the collection is complete, we give an equal amount of fluids back to your pet via either IV catheter or subcutaneously. Our technicians will continue to monitor your pet after the donation until the pet is ready to go home.