By XAVIER SMERDON
DOG owners that would like their four-legged friends to become four-legged heroes are being encouraged to contact a Wyndham vet clinic.
The University of Melbourne Veterinary Hospital in Werribee is also home to the Canine Blood Bank, a service which saves countless dogs every year.
The blood bank, a not-for-profit organisation, supplies life-saving blood products to veterinary hospitals across Australia to be used to help sick or critically injured dogs.
Dr Manuel Boller, head of the Canine Blood Bank, said they were currently experiencing a shortage of donations.
“Veterinary emergency hospitals use blood products routinely and we are struggling to fulfil that need,” Dr Boller said.
“The contribution of pet owners volunteering their dogs to donate blood is of key importance.
“Blood transfusions are such an irreplaceable lifeline for many injured dogs. We simply wouldn’t be able to save as many of these canine patients without this resource.”
Dr Boller said the life of a local family’s beloved pet was recently saved by a blood transfusion.
“Just recently we had a case where a very young Bernese mountain dog named Koda was admitted with severe abdominal bleeding and literally collapsed on the doorstep to the emergency room,” he said.
“This would have been a fatal condition without blood transfusions an arm’s reach away. Instead, seven units of blood and one emergency surgery later, Koda was able to return to her family the following day.”
For a dog to be a potential blood donor they need to meet several criteria, including being aged between one and five-years-old, weighing more than 25 kilograms, and never having travelled outside of Victoria.
For more information call 9731 2328 or visit vh.unimelb.edu.au/bloodbank/
