Pound Corner • Wangford • NR34 8RS
… your award winning, independent small animal practice

We are Looking for Canine Life Savers

Did you know that dogs can give blood too? Blood transfusions are performed in general practice quite rarely, but by registering your dog as a blood donor, you could play a vital role in helping to save the lives of other dogs.

How Blood Donation is performed

First, your dog receives a pre-donation health check from our vet. This is to check they are fit and healthy to donate and includes: 

  • A physical examination of your dog
  • Examining their health history
  • Clipping and cleaning two small areas of your dog’s neck

Next, ready for the donation, your dog will be lifted onto a table and placed onto their side. The donation we take is approximately 450ml of blood. This takes between 5 – 10 minutes. While donating, your dog gets a lovely tummy rub from our team.

In order to donate, dogs must meet the requirements of our donor checklist:

Volunteering your dog could help save lives. Thank you

Register your dog

By registering your dog as a blood donor, you will play a vital role in helping to save the lives of other dogs. When we receive your registration, a member of our team will get in touch to talk further about your dog and check their suitability to become a donor. Your dog’s welfare is always our priority. We want to ensure every dog will enjoy the donation process and love coming to see us.

Complete application online Download donor application form

Meet 10 year old Ollie and 3 year old Sorcha who helped to save Ollie's life.

Ollie recently underwent emergency surgery with veterinary surgeon Lyn. Poor Ollie had a bleeding mass on his spleen and during the operation to remove it, it became evident that Ollie needed a lifesaving blood transfusion. Unlike human hospitals, we do not keep blood products in stock, therefore we urgently needed to source some.

Luckily Noosabay Kennels and Cattery are situated less than half a mile from us. We gave them a call and they were brilliant and immediately came to Ollie’s rescue, bringing down their own beautiful black Labrador Sorcha. At only 3 years old Sorcha is young, fit and healthy with a lovely temperament, making her perfectly suitable for a safe donation to help Ollie. She was brilliant and such a well behaved girl throughout, making absolutely no fuss.

Ollie respond well to the blood transfusion and started to improve. Head nurse Estelle closely monitored Ollie’s condition throughout the night, watching for any adverse reaction.

Thankfully the surgery, along with the generosity of the Sorcha and her owners, Ollies life was saved.

A big heartfelt thank you goes out to all at Noosabay Kennels and Cattery from ourselves at Wangford Veterinary Clinic and Ollie’s very grateful and much relieved owners.

*The spleen is one of those organs of the body that most people have heard of but many are uncertain where it is and what it actually does. Although it has several important functions, dogs can manage to live a normal life without a spleen if it has to be removed.

Pictured below - on the left to right Ollie and Sorcha