It’s a Dog’s Life at Stake : Medicine: Hemopet in Irvine, one of only 2 of commercial blood banks for canines in the U.S., serves 200 hospitals and emergency centers.

The cancer had been in remission for a year and nine months. “A real success story,” the doctor called it.

But Patty and Doug Brown were worried when they took the patient, an Old English sheep dog named Bran Muffin, to their veterinarian’s office in Manhattan Beach for a checkup. The usually energetic dog had slowed his pace; his appetite was down. Over the next few days, while the veterinarian, Deborah Robertson, ran tests, he grew progressively worse.

He showed little interest in food and suffered from severe diarrhea. Test results indicated that lymphosarcoma, a cancer of the white blood cells initially found in his lymph nodes, had attacked his bone marrow and intestines.

In addition to chemotherapy, the dog needed blood plasma for protein, so Robertson called one of only two commercial blood banks for dogs in the nation, Hemopet in Irvine.

Although the availability of life-saving blood products for humans is an integral part of modern medicine, equivalent resources for animals are rare. Until recently, only veterinary schools and large animal hospitals could afford to establish their own systems; most veterinarians had to rely an somewhat haphazard, even potentially harmful, methods.

Hemopet, which opened in July, 1991, is the brainchild of veterinarian Jean Dodds. With 27 years’ experience in veterinary hematology, Dodds is a pioneer in a field of rapidly expanding impact. The blood bank she founded now serves 142 veterinary hospitals and emergency centers in California and 58 in other states.

“Efforts like Hemopet and the Animal Blood Bank are desperately needed in veterinary medicine in order to make blood available to practitioners, as well as assure the quality of that product,” says Urs Giger, DVM, an associate professor at the University of Pennsylvania School of Veterinary Medicine.

“These services . . . are going to make transfusion medicine more readily available to animals in need of it rather than having them either inadequately treated or maybe not treated at all, or having them subject to reactions unnecessary because the blood product they’re using is not a good one,” he adds.

The Animal Blood Bank, near Davis, Calif., is the only other commercial blood bank for dogs in the country. Pat Kaufman, general partner and director, says blood banks “provide (veterinarians) with a reliable source of blood. They can actually set up a transfusion plan in their hospital.”

While animal research has primarily benefited human medicine, Dodds now borrows some of the tools and knowledge of human blood banking to help dogs. It took her five years to raise enough money to open Hemopet, and she still volunteers her time as director, drawing no salary. Her attitude is infectious.

“We’ve learned the art of not wasting anything,” says staff member Gilbert Velasquez.

Perhaps that philosophy is best illustrated by the kennels across the hall from Hemopet’s small laboratory. There, 41 greyhounds are housed in large indoor runs. They are Hemopet’s blood donors. The sleek, friendly animals are former racers no longer considered suitable for the track. If not for the program, they probably would have been destroyed, a generally standard practice in the racing industry.

New arrivals are isolated in another area of the facility. After being screened for signs of contagious disease, they join the other dogs in the main kennels. All the dogs are exercised daily and fed a natural diet to ensure that their blood is free of chemical additives.

The dogs are universal donors. Each animal donates about a pint of blood every three weeks in a procedure that, except for an initial pinch, is painless. The dogs sit patiently through the process, and afterward receive a biscuit for their efforts.

Hemopet plans to only keep each donor dog for about two years, after which it will be placed in a home as a pet. Dodds said there is already a waiting list of people wanting to adopt the dogs.

This adoption effort is applauded by the Humane Society of the United States, a national association to which many animal welfare groups belong.

Marc Paulhus, vice president for companion animals, said the society does not yet have a policy covering commercial blood banks, because these ventures are so new. But Dodds’ national reputation in veterinary medicine and animal welfare lend her project credibility.

She “is a person who is very highly respected by the Humane Society of the United States and animal protection groups in general,” he says. After reading materials Dodds sent to another HSUS official outlining Hemopet’s structure and philosophy, Paulhus says his “overall impression . . . is positive.”

Dog blood banks are necessary because each species in the animal kingdom has a unique genetic identity and blood cell size, and the blood of one cannot be transfused to another, Dodds said.

Although the earliest blood transfusions in the 1600s sometimes involved animal blood given to humans, “you wouldn’t necessarily cause a violent reaction right away, but you couldn’t ever do it a second time. The antibodies would be raised the first time, and then you would get an acute reaction.”

Veterinarians give transfusions to dogs suffering from bleeding diseases, trauma, shock or autoimmune diseases, and animals undergoing certain types of surgery that involve blood loss. Blood components are also used to control anemia, provide antibodies to help fight infection and provide nutritional support and oxygen transport.

Hemopet does not produce blood products for cats because cats are susceptible to viruses for which there are currently no reliable screening tests.

“Animals, like people, have different blood groups,” said Dodds, who is president of the Assn. of Veterinary Transfusion Medicine, a national group of veterinary hematologists. “There are basically 13 blood group systems in the dog.”

Yet veterinary researchers estimate that fewer than 10% of the small animal hospitals nationwide have the facilities to type and cross-match blood and screen for infectious diseases. “The services are just not available,” Dodds says.

Instead, many veterinarians rely on pets belonging to staff members to act as donors, or keep a donor or two at their clinics, Dodds says. They transfuse only whole blood because they do not have the equipment necessary to separate the blood into plasma and packed red blood cells, products that are more efficient and less likely to cause adverse reactions. Only the largest animal hospitals or veterinary schools can afford to run their own internal blood banks.

Dodds would like to expand Hemopet’s services and join with other blood banks and veterinary schools in a coordinated national system similar to that of the American Red Cross.

“We would have ideally maybe four regional centers to serve the nation,” she said. “We would coordinate it so the centers would be the source of the blood. It would all be computerized so that if there’s a surplus in one area it would be shipped to another.”

These centers would work in conjunction with veterinary schools to provide training for veterinary students, participate in blood research projects, and eventually include bone marrow and tissue banks.

Dodds is also looking for some open property to set up larger quarters where more donors could be housed and were older dogs that are not adopted could retire.

Dog owners such as the Browns are supportive of Hemopet’s plans.

“It didn’t even dawn on me that there wasn’t a place for people to get blood for their dog if they needed it,” said Patty Brown.

Now that Bran Muffin is home and his condition has improved, his veterinarian says: “It really helped having the plasma to get us over the hump and try to keep his stable until we could get him back into remission.”

The Browns’ two young children are sympathetic to their dog’s ordeal; they put pillows under his head. “That’s their way of being kind,” Patty Brown says. “They just like to sit around him and lie against him.”