HemoPet
Donor Program · Est. 1986
Every unit of canine plasma and packed red cells that ships from a HemoPet regional hub began as a calm, voluntary draw from a retired racing greyhound living out her days in a closed colony we operate ourselves. Our donors are residents, not inventory. They are screened in, cared for life, and never adopted out.
Community and shelter-based donor pools are how most veterinary blood banks operate. We chose a different standard in 1986, when Dr. Jean Dodds — co-author of the canine blood typing standards later adopted by the AVMA in 1992 — concluded that the variability of walk-in donors posed an unacceptable risk to recipient animals. Three decades later, that decision is the spine of everything we ship.
A closed colony lets us prove, rather than hope, that every donor is free of the transfusion-transmissible pathogens — Babesia, Ehrlichia, Brucella, Leishmania, hemotropic Mycoplasma, and others — that have historically contaminated community-drawn units. Our donors are screened at intake, re-screened annually, and housed in a vector-protected environment across three purpose-built facilities.
Every greyhound in the colony is typed for DEA 1.1, DEA 1.2, DEA 4, DEA 5, and DEA 7 at intake and again at twelve-month intervals. Our in-house laboratory has now completed over 186,000 DEA 1.1 and A/B/AB typings since 2011 — the deepest typing database in veterinary transfusion medicine.
A calm, predictable donor draws a healthier unit. Our colony dogs live in small stable social groups, eat a published ration, receive daily enrichment, and are handled only by trained staff. Reduced stress, reduced cortisol, more consistent hematology — welfare is the quality control system.
Intake & screening
A retired racer does not enter the donor pool on arrival. Each dog completes a structured, fully documented pipeline that protects the colony, the recipient animals downstream, and the donor herself.
Phase 01 · Retirement & transport
Greyhounds are sourced exclusively through verified industry retirement partners and arrive at quarantine within 72 hours of their final race or formal withdrawal. A 60-day quarantine period isolates each dog from the resident colony while baseline observations are recorded.
Phase 02 · Clinical screening
Each dog receives a full transfusion-medicine panel: CBC, chemistry, urinalysis, heartworm antigen, and a 12-pathogen PCR vector-borne panel. Dogs with abnormal baselines, prior transfusions, or positive titers are excluded from the donor pool permanently and placed in our lifetime sanctuary.
Phase 03 · Typing & behavior
Typing is performed twice, on independent samples, by our in-house laboratory. Vaccination is brought current to colony-wide standards. A two-week behavior assessment determines whether a dog can be handled, leashed, and drawn from voluntarily without sedation.
Phase 04 · First donation & integration
The first donation is capped at 250 mL and held for in-house quality control — never released to a clinic. From month nine forward, qualified donors contribute up to 450 mL every eight weeks, or roughly six donations per year, with full CBC monitoring between every cycle.
Colony care standards
Four standards govern every hour of every donor's day. They are written, audited annually by an outside welfare veterinarian, and tied directly to the operating procedures that ship product to your clinic.
The colony is housed in compatible social groups of four to eight dogs in indoor-outdoor runs with raised bedding, climate control between 18–24°C, and acoustic dampening. Group composition is reviewed weekly by our behavior team and rebalanced when needed.
All donors eat the same published ration formulated with our DACVECC nutrition specialist: a complete-and-balanced adult maintenance diet with controlled iron, copper, and omega-3 levels calibrated to support safe eight-week donation cycles. Body condition is scored fortnightly.
Three DACVECC board-certified specialists oversee the colony full time, with weekly rounds documented in each dog's clinical record. Preventative care, dental cleanings, and orthopaedic screening are scheduled on a published annual calendar.
Enrichment is a clinical input, not a perk. Each group receives four formal enrichment rotations weekly — scent work, novel surfaces, low-arousal human contact, and structured turn-out — designed by a certified applied animal behaviorist and audited quarterly.
Audited annually by an independent welfare veterinarian. The full audit summary is available to institutional clients under NDA. Request the audit summary →
By the numbers
Retired racing greyhounds housed across three purpose-built facilities.
Across all clinical and research partners since 2011.
Canine and feline plasma, packed RBCs, and whole blood.
Plus 9 Canadian provinces, with 4 regional distribution hubs.
Founder's note
“The dogs came to us because the industry that bred them had no further use for them. Opening the door once and letting them walk back out — into another kennel, another owner, another ending — would have been the easier thing to do, and the wrong one. The colony is permanent because these greyhounds are not a renewable resource. They are residents of a place that exists to care for them, and the blood products are what we are able to share because of that.”
Working at a clinic that orders from HemoPet? Direct referral and surgical-consult lines are open 24/7. Contact a transfusion specialist →