Canadian Animal Blood Bank in Nova Scotia calls for donors

The Canadian Animal Blood Bank is calling on dog owners to consider signing their furry friend up to give.

Eight-year-old Paloma is a regular at the Canadian Animal Blood Bank in Nova Scotia.

The Great Pyrenees mix is set to donate for the fifth time.

“That will be her milestone, and she gets a little award for that, and she can donate until she’s 11 years old. So, she has three more good donations years to go,” says Mike McCulloch, Paloma’s dog sitter.

Paloma makes a donation every three months, which is how frequent dogs can donate. She is one of 150 enrolled with the Canadian Animal Blood Bank in Nova Scotia.

“When a dog needs blood and is in an emergency situation there isn’t always the time to find a dog to donate at the last minute, so having that blood on hand is crucial to make sure they can go home,” says Ariana Pierre, clinical operations manager at the Canadian Animal Blood Bank.

One dog donor could save up to three lives. However, the team’s blood supply doesn’t always keep up with demand, making every regular donor like Paloma invaluable.

“Of course they are just dogs, they don’t know what they are doing… I am not even this dog’s owner, and I am so proud of this dog. I think if you brought your own dog here, your dog would leave here obviously, but you are going to leave here knowing that your dog did something amazing,” adds McCulloch.

Each donation allows the team to pack red blood cells, plasma and cryo. The process itself is quite simple and the only qualifications to become a donor is being up to date on vaccines, 25 kg (55lbs) and having had a veterinary exam within the past year.

“They lay on a table with their parents, and we collect the donation takes about three, to five minutes, a lot faster than humans thankfully, and once it’s over, they can really go back to life,” adds Pierre

Pierre says blood is always needed. There are weekly blood donation clinics available across the HRM that take place at various veterinary clinics across the region. There aren’t many barriers to becoming a donor.

“If your dog is underweight, if they really dislike the vet or we are not really able to work with them to build that trust, that’s ok, some dogs aren’t happy at the vet. And some of the tick-borne diseases that we have in the Maritimes… would make them exempt,” says Pierre.

Tracey Goodall has three dogs. One of them is close to palliative, so starting her young husky Arrow’s donation journey was important to her. Arrow just recently had her first appointment.

“People don’t think about the emergency situations that dogs have to do and to be in that. I would hate for it to be one of my dogs who didn’t have blood, so I encourage everyone else to do it,” says Goodall.

Goodall adds Arrow will be returning every three months to continue her donations.

“It was pretty straight forward; they just did a questionnaire to make sure she’s healthy and the records from the vet and she got the OK. They tested her blood to make sure she wasn’t ill and yeah; it was a relatively painless situation, she didn’t flinch or anything,” adds Goodall.

Both Paloma and Arrow are universal donors, which makes up less than 30 percent of dogs.

“It means they can donate to any dog but the only downside of that is they can only receive universal blood, so when those dogs need that blood, it is much harder to find,” says Pierre.

The next weekly animal blood donation clinic is open Saturday May 9 from 9 a.m. until 5 p.m. at the Coastal Care Veterinary Emergency and referral hospital.

“We are currently not always keeping up with the demand which is a scary thing because we have many dogs in this province that would be healthy and happy to donate. It’s just finding them and having them come in,” says Pierre.

For those that wish to enroll their dog as a donor and book an appointment, it can be done on the Canadian Animal Blood Bank website.

For more Nova Scotia news, visit our dedicated provincial page