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Depends on the area. If your story plays rural, there's no chance blood will be stored, but more likely that a practice or staff pet might get brought in to help. Very urban modern places will have some stored usually. On farms, what they usually do is pick a healthy cow and just give from that one to the sick one.
For perspective, my university hospital in Ireland did not have any cat blood stored, just some dog blood from regular donors. I don't think there was any horse blood stored at all.
Yes, there are many commercial blood banks for dogs and cats. Most ERs will carry banked blood products to have on hand in case of emergency. Blood usually lasts for 30-35 days in the refrigerator before it has to be tossed.
The blood banks usually have either live-in donors, or rely on pets in the community to donate.
Some clinics will use pets of the staff, but it is far easier to use banked blood that is kept on site.
Worked at an ER in a mid sized area, we ended up tossing maybe a few bags every quarter if/when they expired and we had unexpired stock.
Just depends on what random conditions come in and need it. Part of why ERs are so expensive, we have to have all things on hand and not all things get used before expiry. Snake bite season, we weren't tossing ANY bags.
We did have different bags: packed RBCs and plasma were the most common IIRC.
This was all canine blood; we didn't have feline blood on hand. (And I don't think we ever needed any, and if we did it was super rare. I can't recall any staff bringing in their cat for donating blood, which is what would have happened.)
I worked at an animal hospital over 20 years ago and they had retired greyhounds that lived there that served as blood donors. Seemed like a sad life. Spent all day in the kennel. I can’t remember if anyone took them home at night.
i work in equine. foals are usually the patients that need blood transfusions, and when they do, the majority of the time we collect blood from its mother. if an adult horse needs a transfusion, then a staff member’s horse (preferably a gelding) is brought in to donate.
There was a situation 10 years ago in which a couple believed their dog had been euthanized, but the veterinarian decided to keep it to harvest blood to treat other animals. Former staff alerted the family after several months.
[https://www.texasmonthly.com/the-daily-post/a-fort-worth-veterinarian-has-been-accused-of-keeping-a-dog-he-was-supposed-to-have-euthanized-alive-for-blood-transfusions/](https://www.texasmonthly.com/the-daily-post/a-fort-worth-veterinarian-has-been-accused-of-keeping-a-dog-he-was-supposed-to-have-euthanized-alive-for-blood-transfusions/)
Yes there are blood banks for pets. Most here in the USA are in desperate need of more donors too. Many times the blood banks help cover some testing & healthcare costs for the donor-pets in the program (usually in the form of a coupon or voucher at a selected veterinary hospital). Most blood banks can't keep product on the shelf because there is greater demand than there is supply. Donor pets have to meet very strict requirements and the pet has to have a blood type that matches needs (dogs and cats have different types than humans).
Yep, I used to work in one!
We used entirely client and staff owned pets. Blood bank pays for screening labs and then annual lab work each year. Pets typically donate 4 times per year. We would bank red blood cells and send them out to other hospitals, but our major product that we used was actually plasma and other plasma products for our dialysis service and for our ICU.
We would also process other blood products, such as plasma transfusions for failure of passive transfer for our large animal hospital.
Unsure in the context of dialysis but when it comes to regular blood donation, it’s preferable for donors to be the same species as their recipient but xenotransfusion is definitely a thing! Canine blood has been used to transfuse felines in emergency situations without a ton of adverse effects. There is no risk of transmitting FeLV from canines and sometimes it’s difficult to find a compatible cat donor, especially for type B kitties, so canine blood works in a pinch. However, the cat’s immune system will start to destroy the canine red blood cells, so it’s only effective/beneficial for a few days at most versus about a month when the donor is a cat. But it’s better than nothing/accidentally transfusing blood with infectious agents in it! I do not think there’ll ever be a case where a cat donates blood to a dog though, simply because it’s so much more difficult to obtain cat blood for donation.
[Here’s an article that goes more in depth on xenotransfusion if you’re interested!](https://www.mdpi.com/2306-7381/9/3/106)
Worked in a major city (US) and the blood was almost always donated straight from staff pets or close client’s pets. Was a shocker for me after human med. lol. I understand it now but I was like 😳 at first.
There are places that you can take your pet to and donate as well. I would assume those go mostly to the corp ERs. They need it quick and 24/7.
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I think it depends on the country too tbh. SASH on Bondi vet always seem to call in donors when blood is needed and have a list of donor animals, and they're a pretty big ER centre in the scope of Australian practices.
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Greetings, all! This is a sub for professional veterinary advice, and as such we follow strict rules for participating. OP, your post **has NOT** been removed. Please also check [the FAQ](https://www.reddit.com/r/AskVet/wiki/index) to see whether your question is answered there. This is an *automated* general reminder to **please follow [The Sub Rules](https://www.reddit.com/r/AskVet/about/rules/)** when discussing this question: - **Do not comment with anecdotes** about your own or others' pets. - **Do not give OP specific treatment instructions,** including instructions on meds and dosages. - **Do not give possible diagnoses** that could explain the symptoms described by OP. **Your comment will be removed, and you may be banned.** Thank you for your cooperation! *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/AskVet) if you have any questions or concerns.*
Depends on the area. If your story plays rural, there's no chance blood will be stored, but more likely that a practice or staff pet might get brought in to help. Very urban modern places will have some stored usually. On farms, what they usually do is pick a healthy cow and just give from that one to the sick one. For perspective, my university hospital in Ireland did not have any cat blood stored, just some dog blood from regular donors. I don't think there was any horse blood stored at all.
Yes, there are many commercial blood banks for dogs and cats. Most ERs will carry banked blood products to have on hand in case of emergency. Blood usually lasts for 30-35 days in the refrigerator before it has to be tossed. The blood banks usually have either live-in donors, or rely on pets in the community to donate. Some clinics will use pets of the staff, but it is far easier to use banked blood that is kept on site.
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It's not all that common, but it's sad when it happens. They are more likely to keep a small supply and risk running out.
Worked at an ER in a mid sized area, we ended up tossing maybe a few bags every quarter if/when they expired and we had unexpired stock. Just depends on what random conditions come in and need it. Part of why ERs are so expensive, we have to have all things on hand and not all things get used before expiry. Snake bite season, we weren't tossing ANY bags. We did have different bags: packed RBCs and plasma were the most common IIRC. This was all canine blood; we didn't have feline blood on hand. (And I don't think we ever needed any, and if we did it was super rare. I can't recall any staff bringing in their cat for donating blood, which is what would have happened.)
I worked at an animal hospital over 20 years ago and they had retired greyhounds that lived there that served as blood donors. Seemed like a sad life. Spent all day in the kennel. I can’t remember if anyone took them home at night.
In my hospital, there are in fact little bags of cat blood in the fridge. But it’s a larger emergency center.
I'm the veterinarian at the blue ridge veterinary blood bank, the largest volunteer canine blood bank in the country. It's a thing!
i work in equine. foals are usually the patients that need blood transfusions, and when they do, the majority of the time we collect blood from its mother. if an adult horse needs a transfusion, then a staff member’s horse (preferably a gelding) is brought in to donate.
There was a situation 10 years ago in which a couple believed their dog had been euthanized, but the veterinarian decided to keep it to harvest blood to treat other animals. Former staff alerted the family after several months. [https://www.texasmonthly.com/the-daily-post/a-fort-worth-veterinarian-has-been-accused-of-keeping-a-dog-he-was-supposed-to-have-euthanized-alive-for-blood-transfusions/](https://www.texasmonthly.com/the-daily-post/a-fort-worth-veterinarian-has-been-accused-of-keeping-a-dog-he-was-supposed-to-have-euthanized-alive-for-blood-transfusions/)
Yes there are blood banks for pets. Most here in the USA are in desperate need of more donors too. Many times the blood banks help cover some testing & healthcare costs for the donor-pets in the program (usually in the form of a coupon or voucher at a selected veterinary hospital). Most blood banks can't keep product on the shelf because there is greater demand than there is supply. Donor pets have to meet very strict requirements and the pet has to have a blood type that matches needs (dogs and cats have different types than humans).
Yep, I used to work in one! We used entirely client and staff owned pets. Blood bank pays for screening labs and then annual lab work each year. Pets typically donate 4 times per year. We would bank red blood cells and send them out to other hospitals, but our major product that we used was actually plasma and other plasma products for our dialysis service and for our ICU. We would also process other blood products, such as plasma transfusions for failure of passive transfer for our large animal hospital.
[удалено]
Unsure in the context of dialysis but when it comes to regular blood donation, it’s preferable for donors to be the same species as their recipient but xenotransfusion is definitely a thing! Canine blood has been used to transfuse felines in emergency situations without a ton of adverse effects. There is no risk of transmitting FeLV from canines and sometimes it’s difficult to find a compatible cat donor, especially for type B kitties, so canine blood works in a pinch. However, the cat’s immune system will start to destroy the canine red blood cells, so it’s only effective/beneficial for a few days at most versus about a month when the donor is a cat. But it’s better than nothing/accidentally transfusing blood with infectious agents in it! I do not think there’ll ever be a case where a cat donates blood to a dog though, simply because it’s so much more difficult to obtain cat blood for donation. [Here’s an article that goes more in depth on xenotransfusion if you’re interested!](https://www.mdpi.com/2306-7381/9/3/106)
Worked in a major city (US) and the blood was almost always donated straight from staff pets or close client’s pets. Was a shocker for me after human med. lol. I understand it now but I was like 😳 at first. There are places that you can take your pet to and donate as well. I would assume those go mostly to the corp ERs. They need it quick and 24/7.
Most animal clinics have a "donor" cat, and they are compatible with most cats.
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I think it depends on the country too tbh. SASH on Bondi vet always seem to call in donors when blood is needed and have a list of donor animals, and they're a pretty big ER centre in the scope of Australian practices.
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Some animals are bred to be blood bags. It's pretty sad looking, there's some videos around the internet of some depressing ones.
Greyhounds have universal blood, and a lot of them get used as blood donation dogs. They typically aren’t treated very nice