Donating the gift of life

Emergency never informs us, neither accident warns us; so it’s always better to be prepared for the worst, we cannot take chances with our pooches. Just imagine if our loving pooch is battling for life, and vet asks for blood transfusion. What next! Most of us are clueless. D&P always understands the medical needs of pet parents. Thus, here we bring some useful information about the nitty-gritty of blood donation and donor club.
Q?What are the health requisites for a dog to be a donor? Any 2-6-year-old healthy and friendly dog, with at least 25 kg body weight, free from ticks and other major diseases, who is up-to-date vaccinated and dewormed is medically fit for donation.
Q?Do vets sedate dogs, before donation? It’s not an indispensable part of donation. The sedation is required only when pooches seem to be frightened or hyperactive or aggressive. The sedatives are very mild and given for short duration only.
QWhat is the procedure, how’s it done? A small area of fur on the neck is clipped, to protect him/her from infection and to keep the blood contamination free. A 16 G needle, attached to the blood bag is inserted into the jugular vein to collect blood. After the blood collection, vets monitor the donor for sometime.
Q?How long it takes for donation? The whole process takes around 15-20 minutes to get successfully accomplished.
Q?How much blood can be donated and after how long a pooch can donate again? A healthy dog can donate about 350 ml of blood. Our furry companion can again donate blood after three months, since the last donation.
Q?Are there any side effects of blood donation? It’s a sheer myth; there are no side effects. But as they say precautions are always better than cure, so vets generally monitor dogs for 30 minutes before they leave. Dogs sometimes need emergency blood transfusion, if situation goes out of gear or in cases of nosebleeds, anemia, shock, trauma, or other blood disorders. Taking in account of practical dead ends in dog blood banking, several clubs, such as The Ark Dog Blood Donor Club have come up…to save God’s gift…we mean lives of our innocent pooches.
(Inputs from The Ark Veterinary Clinic, Adyar, Chennai, a 24-hour veterinary clinic. Their emergency number is – 9841811445. For more information and further details visit – www.theark.in or call – 044-24915402.)