Blood donation

[bozzabollix]

Our young Labrador is in intensive care with suspected rat poisoning. She was a year old yesterday and pretty much nearly died, but our other dog donated blood which has helped enough to get her up to the Royal College of Veterinary Surgeons where they’ll do all they can. The next forty eight hours is going to be hell waiting.

Our vet practice asked for our other dog to be brought to donate blood as she’s the perfect candidate being below 8, fully vaccinated and a good size.

I didn’t know until yesterday how vital it is that vets can access donated blood. If my girl pulls through then it will partly be down to her being transfused quickly as we had another dog.

To try and keep busy today I wanted to post just to say that if anyone is willing, vets need lists of willing donors to contact quickly in an emergency. My donor dog is six months off being 8 which is the cut off point, but if my youngest survives I’ll definitely offer her once she’s old enough and back to full health.

Its bloody heart wrenching having a dog, it really is.

I'd never heard of this. If I had I would have registered our dog but he's far too old now.

I do hope your poor dog pulls through. It's so irresponsible to use poison. I wish it could be banned.

I'm sorry. I hope your dog pulls through.

I know quite a few dogs who donate blood. They have to be a certain weight and age. Newfoundland and greyhounds are the dogs belonging to friends that donate.

My older dog has donated when younger, he is a lab, and now above the age limit. My vet told me at the time that greyhounds make really good donors - something about the metabolism.

There are very few blood banks in Scotland for dogs, so the donations here are very much ‘ on demand’

Hope your young lab is OK, op. They are such a worry. Sending good thoughts.

What a stressful time and I hope your dog recovers ok, rat poison is horrible stuff. Great your other dog could help out in an emergency.

My greyhounds & lurcher were donors with Pet Blood Bank as it was easier to schedule to go along to the sessions every 3-4months hosted at a local-ish vet practice. The PBB team were great at making sure the dogs were relaxed and happy to donate, mine used to love laying on table while getting strokes off all the staff & getting food after. Noticed they are now looking to start similar scheme for cats and do a service for alpaca herds.

Greyhounds make excellent donors as their blood is rich in red blood cells, along with having lower than average white blood cells and platelets, they are also more likely to be negative blood type for universal donors. One of my greys was positive type but they can still donate. Greyhounds blood work values are completely different to other dogs.

I hope your dog is ok. I had never heard of this before but that is really good to know and I'd be happy to allow my dog to donate if she is eligible. Thanks for raising awareness!

I found out about this several years ago when local Vets in my area asked through the local newspapers for dog donors . Both my dogs were too old at the time . They have now passed on ,and in two weeks I shall be collecting my new puppy .
I hope for her to be able to donate blood .🐶🤞🏻

Yes pet blood bank is desperate for donors. We took our adolescent GR to donate and he was just to exuberant sadly. We are doing some training in the hope we can try and donate in the future. I'm so sorry to hear about your dog, I hope she pulls through quickly ❤️

I hope your dog is ok, something similar happened to our Ddog last year.
I am in a local breed group and several people offered blood donations from their dogs, we didn’t need them as it turned out but it was a lovely offer

She’s back and seemingly fine, amazing for a dog on the brink of death then admitted to ITU on Wednesday. If anything too bouncy for her stitches, but better that than the other way!

Phew, I can breathe now.

The blood donation, our quick thinking vets and the Royal College Hospital have been amazing.

@ScattyHattie the blood bank for pets sounds perfect. My vets are reliant on people bringing their dogs in response to the need which isn’t ideal. They’ve now got to expand that list of willing owners. I’ll speak to them on Monday about the blood bank. Also fascinating what good donors greyhounds are, my sister owned two and never knew this. Again it’s all about raising awareness.