Tucson Region

State's 1st pet blood bank will save lives of best friends

Murphy, an Australian shepherd mix, was diagnosed with cancer in November and suffered from internal bleeding. His only chance at survival: a blood transfusion and surgery. But Murphy's veterinarian couldn't find an animal clinic in town with blood to spare or donor dogs available for transfusions. Blood products ordered from an out-of-state animal blood bank would take two days to arrive - too late for Murphy. The decision was made to humanely euthanize the 12-year-old dog. Murphy's death in November has inspired his owner to start the state's first animal blood bank to benefit pet owners across Southern Arizona. Frustrated by the lack of blood available for Murphy, his owner, Reagen Kulseth, and Murphy's veterinarian, Michael Samuels, hope to have the Tucson-based animal blood bank operating by April. "I was in shock. You walk into a vet clinic - you don't think that was going to be an issue, and it was a major issue," Kulseth said about the lack of available blood. Murphy received a transfusion from another of Kulseth's dogs, but one unit of blood wasn't enough. Animals can donate blood no more than once every few weeks. Kulseth, an attorney, suspects there were donor dogs available through other local clinics, but the veterinarians would not share their information. "There's this resource out there that's heavily guarded, and it's exclusive," she said. "You have to be a patient at certain clinics. "Where there's a problem, I always look for a solution. And my first thought, when I discovered there were donor dogs, is, 'Why don't we have a list of donor dogs?' " Cats have three blood types, and all are universal donors, meaning a cat with one blood type can use blood of a different type. It's not the same for dogs. There are a dozen or more blood types in dogs, and some individual dogs have multiple blood types. Of all the canine blood types, only one type is unusable, said Kulseth, but that type is found in 50 percent to 67 percent of the canine population. Serving S. Arizona, Phoenix

Four major animal blood banks exist in the United States, but none is in Arizona, Samuels said. Murphy's Blood Bank will be the state's first 24-hour, full-service animal blood bank. It will supply fresh, whole blood and frozen blood products to veterinarians in Southern Arizona and the Phoenix area. Eventually, Samuels hopes, the bank will be large enough to ship blood products to out-of-state veterinarians. He said there is an "extreme shortage" of blood products in the country. At his clinic, Central Animal Hospital, "when you need blood for transfusion, . . . usually the need is extreme." "The times that we're scrambling to get blood, they're horrible," Samuels said. "We're running all over town, we're making phone calls, and it's usually something that's a dire need. Somebody's going to die if we don't get it." In Murphy's case, "the dog needed surgery, and we couldn't do it because we didn't have the products to transfuse." Feline blood is in even shorter supply than canine blood, said Samuels, who estimates veterinarians at the nearly 100 clinics in Tucson perform about 1,000 transfusions a year. "I think people would do it more if it were available," he said. "I think the level of care would go up." A unit of dog's blood equals about a pint, and a unit of cat's blood is about 2 ounces. The cost for blood and blood products at local clinics ranges from $140 to nearly $500 per unit. Samuels said Murphy's Blood Bank prices will remain competitive, but the bank still has to make money. The equipment required is expensive. Murphy's Blood Bank is buying a used centrifuge the size of a washing machine, used to separate the red blood cells from the plasma, for $16,000. It costs about $120 to produce one unit of canine blood, Kulseth said. "That's just testing it. That's not trying to recover the cost of equipment, blood bags, syringes, staff hired to do this." A limited shelf life also makes costs prohibitive. Fresh, whole blood lasts only about a month, while the frozen products are usually good for a year. A local blood bank will be useful, said veterinarian Rhonda Schulman of Southern Arizona Veterinary Specialty and Emergency Center. "There are national blood banks. . . . Unfortunately, sometimes they run low on products," Schulman said. Her clinic keeps blood in stock and sometimes sells it to other vets, but it doesn't have a pool of on-call donors available if supplies run low. She said Murphy's Blood Bank could prove especially useful to smaller clinics where it isn't feasible to keep the expensive blood in stock. Debbie Barnett's basenji mix, Shadow, 9, was saved by a transfusion at the Emergency Center in June when the dog began bleeding internally after eating rat poison. "One morning she was very listless, and in a period of three to four hours she deteriorated rapidly," Barnett said. When they arrived at the veterinary hospital, she said, "it was amazing. It was like being on 'E.R.' They knew we were coming, and they were yelling for this doctor and that doctor. They rushed her in back. The only way to save her was with a blood transfusion. "It was a pretty amazing thing," Barnett said. "At 3 p.m., we left. We came back later that evening, and she was sitting up. She had all the IVs of blood going in, something you're not expecting to see. The next morning, they said she did remarkably well because of all the blood going in." List of on-call pet owners

Murphy's Blood Bank will keep a list of on-call pet owners whose dogs and cats have been pre-screened to be donors. The bank also will keep blood products in stock. While some small-animal blood banks around the country rely on voluntary donations for blood products, others - including many at universities - operate as blood-bank kennels, housing dogs and cats for the sole purpose of bleeding them. In California, it's illegal to acquire animal blood through a donor program. Animals must come from what is referred to as a "closed colony." Several years ago, it was uncovered that at least one California humane society was providing dogs and cats to a blood-bank kennel that was abusing its animals. In response, two years ago the California governor signed into law a bill protecting animal donors. Most blood banks in California now are required to develop protocols for the humane treatment of animals and have an adoption program in place for the animals after they are retired as blood donors. "To keep dogs caged for years just so they can donate blood is gruesome," Kulseth said. "I realize that to refer to our animals as volunteers is a misnomer. No animal can raise a paw and knowingly volunteer to participate in this program. However, our donors come from loving families, and donating blood will be only a small part of their life." Not all blood-bank kennels treat their animals solely as a commodity, said Debbie Elston, office manager for the California-based nonprofit Hemopet. The blood-bank kennel in the Los Angeles area houses retired racing greyhounds from Tucson and Phoenix. It keeps 160 greyhounds at a time, bleeds them every two weeks and produces 18,000 to 20,000 units of blood products per year. The dogs are housed two to a kennel for companionship, they have regular interaction with Hemopet's 40 employees and get daily walks, high-quality dog food, regular baths and clean, comfortable bedding, Elston said. The animals are kept for 18 months to two years, then put up for adoption. Arizona has no laws regarding the operation of animal blood banks, provided the procedures are done by a licensed veterinarian, said Katie Decker, an Arizona Department of Agriculture spokeswoman.