A sick pet is a pet parent’s most dreaded experience. While many illnesses can be treated with medication, some require more drastic measures, such as hospitalisation and even surgery.
In critical cases, blood transfusions may be the only hope for survival. But just like humans, finding the right blood for your pet can be a delicate and crucial process. Is blood transfusion for pets as delicate as that of human beings? What do you need to know?
Meet Sophie. As she comes into Dr James Nyariki’s office, she looks full of life; her thin body a reminder of the disease that almost took her out. Sophie is a black German Shepherd on whom Dr Nyariki successfully conducted a blood transfusion.
“Sophie was brought in by her owner who complained that she had bouts of vomiting and diarrhea. By the time she came in she was in a bad state. From the medical check up, we established that she had the parvoviral enteritis that had caused her to lose a lot of blood, making her anaemic. I had to get her blood. The blood transfusion helped her. She still looks a little frail because the disease took a toll on her and she is still on the way to recovery,” explains Dr Nyariki, a veterinary surgeon and medical director at the Kenya Society for the Protection and Care of Animals (KSPCA).
“The parvovirus is a viral infection that affects unvaccinated puppies of between two weeks to six months. It is a common disease that can result in the death of the puppy but it is treatable. When your dog is going through that disease, they tend to lose blood as they develop ulcers in their gut. This necessitates blood transfusion,” Dr Nyariki tells the Business Daily.
The Kenya Society for the Protection and Care of Animals (KSPCA) Veterinary Surgeon and Medical Director Dr James Nyariki, examines Sophie, a rescued dog at Karen, on December 19, 2024.
Photo credit: Wilfred Nyangaresi | Nation Media Group
He says that only a clinical assessment can determine whether a pet requires a blood transfusion.
“Blood transfusion for pets involves either transfusing the whole blood or part of the blood, which is the plasma. When conducting a full-blood surgery, I have to determine the amount of blood that my patient (the animal) has lost. Basically, blood transfusion depends on the procedure you are performing and what has been lost,” he says, adding, “In a case where there’s severe haemorrhage, it could be from surgery or trauma. As a surgeon, I would decide whether I need to transfuse the whole blood.”
Animal blood loss can be occasioned by surgery, trauma or the loss of red blood cells due to parasites.
“In the case of tick fever which comes about when an animal is bit by a tick, the red blood cells are destroyed. To treat the animal, the blood transfusion targets the red blood cells that have the parasites to destroy everything.”
How much blood should your pet have?
Dr Nyariki says that the total circulating blood volume in an animal is affected by physiologic factors such as lean body weight and age.
He offers, “On average, the blood volume should be approximately 5.5 - 8.0 per cent of the animal’s body weight. The total volume is dependent on many factors, including weight. Therefore, the blood volume of a 5kg adult domestic short-hair cat would be about 275 millilitres, and that of a 25kg local cross-breed adult dog would be 2.2 litres. By comparison, an adult human has approximately five litres of blood volume.”
Getting the blood
“In an ideal situation, there would be a blood bank, whereby as a vet I would say, ‘I have this patient, I have tested the blood, I have checked the type of blood, and I have cross-matched it with whatever they have at the bank and it is exactly matched. This is the scenario in other Western countries where the vet practice is advanced. In a situation where you don’t have a blood bank, we have clinics with donors. The clinics have dogs or cats they use as donors. For donor animals it is important to make sure that they are healthy, their vaccination is up to date, they don’t have any internal or external parasites and that they are checked regularly,” he explains.
“Here at KSPCA we have many animals and we have identified the ones that we know are calm, fully vaccinated and are healthy. So when we need blood we already know that we can take from dog X or cat Y. For dogs, as long as they are calm, we are able to draw blood without sedation. However, cats can be a bit difficult as they require sedation to be able to draw out their blood,” Dr Nyariki adds.
Dogs that are to be used as donors, Dr Nyariki says, need to “weigh atleast 25 kilos while cats should weigh a minimum of 4.5kilos. A donating cat should also be atleast a year old, and the dog should be between one and two years old.”
The Kenya Society for the Protection and Care of Animals(KSPCA) Veterinary Surgeon and Medical Director Dr James Nyariki, during an interview at Karen on December 19, 2024.
Photo credit: Wilfred Nyangaresi | Nation Media Group
Blood collection from cats and dogs without terminal effects is usually limited to 10 percent of total circulating blood volume. Therefore, one can collect about 25ml of blood from cats and about 250ml from dogs without a need for replacement fluids.
“Once you get the blood, it must be used within four to six hours, as it cannot be stored. Other processes need to be done to store the blood to store the blood, and we don’t have the machines for them,” says Dr Nariki.
The first transfusion in dogs can be done without cross-matching the two animals’ blood types.
“Blood transfusion from one animal to a patient can only be done once without conducting the cross-matching tests. Adverse reactions will only occur if you attempt to do a second transfusion without ensuring that the blood is matched,” he says.
He cautions that the situation is different for cats. “While cross-matching in dogs does not need to be done in the first transfusion, cats have to be cross-matched before the first transfusion.”
Dr Nyariki says that many clinics lack testing facilities, making it difficult for them to conduct tests fully. However, preliminary checks are always done on the animal’s blood.
“I always have to take out a bit of the blood from the pet to check whether there are parasites, the number of white blood cells, and the red blood cells.”
Blood groups
“Blood types (or groups) in animals like in humans are determined by specific antigens found on the surface of red blood cells. In humans there is the ABO system. Dogs have 8 major blood groups, DEA (dog erythrocyte antigen) 1 to 8. The most common antigen is DEA 1.1 and 1.2. Cats have 1 blood group system, the AB system which has 3 blood groups, A, B and AB,” he explains.
He says that a donating animal can always donate a second time, but it needs time to recover. “Normally, we give it three months. Additionally, a pregnant animal or one on heat is not a potential donor.
Johnny is another dog that had just received a blood transfusion when we did the interview. “Johnny has had tick fever for a long time. He was recently rescued from a home where he was abandoned to die. He is an old dog but we try to give our best to every animal that comes our way,” he concludes.
