Doggy Blood Donors
Penny Rogers
Staff writer
Griffin is a two-year-old Burmese Mountain Collie Cross who has been donating to the animal blood bank at the Central Victoria Veterinary Hospital for over a year.
Photo by Penny Rogers, Lookout
Meet Griffin, a playful, buoyant two-year-old Burmese Mountain Collie cross who helps save lives and loves doing it.
Griffin is a registered blood donor dog with the Central Victoria Veterinary Hospital (CVVH), the only animal blood bank on Vancouver Island.
"The blood donor program was established about 15 years ago," explains Melissa Scott, a Registered Animal Health Technician VTS ECC at the hospital. "Angela Kendell, one of our technicians at the time, went to a conference and she saw the need for our facility to have a blood donor program because we are focused on emergency and critical care here and a lot of that has to do with being able to give blood products."
After doing the initial research, Kendell went out and started recruiting donors. Initially all donors were pets of staff at the hospital, but after promoting the program at local dog walks and SPCA events, she started finding both dog and cat owners who were excited to sign up.
Griffin's owner, Leading Seaman Melinda Urquhart, signed up for the program as soon as she realized there was a need for donor dogs.
"He's a universal donor, which means he's got the blood type just like a person with O negative blood. Because of this he is a regular donor and he gets called on an emergency basis. He's given blood about four times so far," says LS Urquhart.
According to Scott, Griffin has the less common (DEA 1.1 negative) blood type and there is still a need for more of this type of canine donor. There is also a need for more cats in the program.
"We have about 25-30 dog donors and about 15 cat donors right now," says Scott. "At the moment we're doing okay for dogs with the DEA 1.1 positive blood type, which is the most common, but we are looking for dogs with 1.1 negative."
There are perks that come with being a donor, according to LS Urquhart.
"Griffin gets dog treats and dog food at discounted prices plus they give him toys pretty much every time he donates. Once a year he gets a goodie bag with gift certificates, more toys and Advantage flea treatments, so it's actually quite a good little scenario."
The process of giving blood is quite simple and, as Scott explains, the entire process can take anywhere from and hour to a couple of hours.
"Sometimes the dogs need a little bit of sedation to help calm them down and sometimes with the cats we have to give them an injectable anesthetic that knocks them out for about 10 minutes so that we have enough time to collect the blood. For both cats and dogs we take the collection from their jugular vein as it's the biggest vein and thus the easiest one to collect from."
The only issue with pet blood donations is the expiry rate. Blood can't be stored for long periods of time, so when an emergency arises the phone could ring anytime asking for the animal to be brought into the hospital.
"A lot of owners are really good about that. There are even a few who we've had to call past midnight and they get up in their pajamas, bring their animals in, no questions asked. We've had owners that are really awesome about coming down. And they feel good about it," said Scott.
And so does Griffin.
"He loves going to the vet," said LS Urquhart. "He gets excited in the truck as soon as we pull into the driveway at the hospital. He drags us to the door and once we open it he just goes on his own straight to the back room. He knows where he's going and he's happy to do it."
If anyone is interested in having their dog or cat become a donor, they can contact Scott at the Central Victoria Veterinary Hospital at 250-475-2495 for more information.
