How pet blood donors are saving lives

Usually, when someone’s pet is in the veterinary hospital, it’s a stressful time — something is wrong, and it’s gone beyond the usual vet visit.

But on Feb. 15 at BluePearl Pet Hospital in Ohio Township, Ashleah Stone wasn’t worried at all about her 7-year-old greyhound, J.B.

That’s because J.B. wasn’t there for medical attention, but rather to donate blood for BluePearl’s pet blood bank.

“Unless you’ve faced a pet emergency where they require blood, it’s not something a lot of people think about,” said Dr. Meghan Respess, blood bank director at BluePearl. “But just like humans, we transfuse cats, dogs and sometimes other species for the same reasons — trauma, certain toxicities, chronic illnesses, cancers. And in emergency and specialty medicine, I’ve used those products on a weekly and sometimes daily basis.

Respess said BluePearl facilities perform about 8,000 pet blood transfusions annually. There are three BluePearl hospitals in the Pittsburgh region — Ohio Township, Monroeville and North Strabane Township in Washington County.

“Pittsburgh is a very busy hospital, so they have a high need for blood products,” she said.

Stone is a staff member at BluePearl and has been working in emergency veterinary medicine for the past 17 years. She said this type of medical treatment has come a long way.

“I remember when we used to use cow red blood cells, which didn’t have the same efficacy as what we’re doing now,” she said. “Being able to watch that change in medicine and how much more effective it was, that was part of what convinced me to start bringing J.B. in to donate.”

The donation process is simple and straightforward.

“It’s quick, about 5 to 10 minutes,” Respess said. “We routinely draw blood from a vein in the neck, which is how we can quickly get the volume we need and get a pet up and out quickly. They get treats and love and they’re good to go home with their owner.”

One thing humans and pets share is a variety of blood types.

“Dogs have 13 blood types,” Respess said. “Cats have their own system of blood types but it’s a little more familiar to us because it’s Type A, Type B, Type AB and some other types we’ve discovered in recent years.”

Each blood type has specific antigens that live on the red blood cells. Respess said cats have naturally occurring antibodies and must always receive their particular blood type, or else they risk a potentially fatal transfusion reaction. When dogs receive their first transfusion, they can accept any blood type, but from then on, they must receive their own blood type.

And just as in the human world, Respess said there is a severe shortage of available blood.

“Some vets would probably even call it a crisis,” she said. “There’s only a handful of commercial pet blood banks in the U.S. and a smattering of private businesses like BluePearl that have their own. With commercial banks, it can sometimes take six months for an order to come in, so if a pet needs blood right away, it can be hard to find and you might have to send an animal someplace else to get it.”

BluePearl works with a relatively small pool of about 30 feline and 71 canine blood donors.

“But just between the hospitals in the area, we could probably use two or three times that amount,” Respess said.

J.B. was doing her part, staying calm as her blood was drawn.

“When I first came to BluePearl, I had a smaller dog that wasn’t eligible to donate,” Stone said.

Dogs must be between 1 and 8 years old and about 40 to 50 pounds to donate blood.

“We had a lot of greyhounds coming in, and I discovered they’re almost always universal donors, and they have a higher red blood cell count,” she said. “So when it came time to get a new dog, I knew it would be a greyhound.”

BluePearl staff has access to the blood bank inventory at all of its hospitals and can ship units to other locations if necessary.

“We have four cat donors that are a very unique blood type, and it’s great to be able to send that where it’s needed,” Stone said.

Respess said pets are screened before donation.

“We take their health and temperament into account,” she said. “We don’t want this to be a stressful experience for donor pets. Pets and owners get to know the people at the blood bank over the course of their donations, so it kind of highlights the human-animal bond.”

In addition, blood bags are marked with a bar code and donor families receive an email alerting them when and where their pet’s donation was used.

“That’s really a nice way to let people know how much they’re helping,” Respess said. “Blood units can be divided up into three parts, so donor families can find out their pet’s blood has gone to help up to three other lives, potentially.”

For more information about pet blood donation, see BluePearlVet.com.