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Canine Donors Give and Receive in Bloodmobile: Owners Bring Their Dogs to a Collection Drive Run By the Animal League of Berks County That Will Benefit the University of Pennsylvania's Ryan Veterinary Hospital. The Pets' Reward: a Tasty Snack.

Posted on: Monday, 3 April 2006, 03:03 CDT

By Adam Wilson, Reading Eagle, Pa.

Apr. 2--Bella Scalesi spent a good chunk of her Saturday in the white bloodmobile trying to donate to a good cause, but like many others who came before and after her, she just didn't have what it takes.

But it's not as if the day was a total bust. The snacks in the bloodmobile were plentiful and delicious -- at least for those with discerning taste such as Bella, a 4-year-old black Labrador.

Collies, Labradors, boxers and even a Siberian husky lined up at the mobile doggy blood bank outside the Animal Rescue League of Berks County in Cumru Township for just one reason -- and it wasn't the canine cuisine.

The Penn Animal Blood Bank collects blood for the University of Pennsylvania's Ryan Veterinary Hospital in order to keep up with the demand of more than 400 blood transfusions performed each year at the Philadelphia facility.

More than 28,000 small-animal operations are performed at the hospital each year, which resulted in Penn's creating the nation's first animal bloodmobile in 1992.

Outside of a handful of veterinary hospitals, there are only four commercial blood banks in the country, said Amy Guldin, a veterinary nurse at the University of Pennsylvania.

And while criteria for human blood donations are relatively strict, meeting the eligibility requirements for dogs is perhaps harder than using a leg to scratch an ear or catching a tennis ball by mouth in midair.

Dogs must be between 1 and 7 years old, weigh more than 50 pounds, have a good temperament and carry a universal blood type. There are more than a dozen different types of blood found in canines.

With only about 30 percent of dogs having the universal blood type, the demand for blood is always greater than the supply.

"It makes it very difficult," Guldin said about the strict requirements. "But we need something that we can just pull from a shelf and load into a patient very quickly without the patient having a negative reaction."

Each unit of blood is separated into several components, the largest of which are plasma and red blood cells.

In the end, only five of the 14 dogs that came through the bloodmobile met the requirements and only three ended up giving blood.

But three pints of blood in a four-hour drive is actually pretty good, Guldin said.

One of the three pints came from a breed of dog that often worries blood bank staffers, said Nicole Lipson, also a veterinary nurse at the hospital.

But Bailey, a 3-year-old German shepherd, didn't display the erratic behavior often shown by the breed when getting blood drawn.

In fact, this was Bailey's second time giving blood, and though she obviously would have been happier anyplace else, Bailey did a whole lot better than the first attempt last year. That time, with more than half a pint of blood drawn, the dog made it known she'd had enough.

Bailey's owners, Helen and Dennis Smith of Sinking Spring, said they had never needed the services of a blood transfusion for their pets.

"It's just something we could do for animals," Helen Smith said.

Alice Scalesi, a Green Hills resident, said she brought Bella because one of her pets might need a blood transfusion some day.

Six years ago, she said, her daughter's dog, Graham, was diagnosed with potentially fatal Addison's disease, which is characterized by the shutting down of the adrenal glands.

"That happened so fast," she said. "What if he needed blood? It has to come from somewhere."

That somewhere, at least for the Penn animal hospital, is anywhere within a 11 /2 hour drive of Philadelphia. The blood has to be stored properly at the hospital within six hours of being drawn.

Though this was the first animal blood drive held at the Animal Rescue League, the bloodmobile will be back in July and October in an effort to build up a regular donor pool, said Tina Evangelista-Eppenstein, media coordinator for the rescue league.

Contact reporter Adam Wilson at 610-371-5042 or awilson@readingeagle.com.

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Copyright (c) 2006, Reading Eagle, Pa.

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Source: Reading Eagle

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