Dusty struggled against the slippery floor to jump up onto a blanketed table - a little jump that would enable another dog to live a longer, healthier life.
Dusty, a 6-year-old yellow lab, is one of about 25 on-call donor dogs volunteered by their owners to give blood at MSU’s Small Animal Clinic.
Elaine Striler, Dusty’s owner and a licensed veterinary technician at the Veterinary Teaching Hospital, said the animals need to be given attention to calm them down while donating blood.
“They’re more afraid of what might happen,” she said. “Once they know, they’re okay.”
Along with the on-call blood donor dogs, which provide about 75 percent of the donated blood, the clinic also keeps six cats and nine dogs.
The cats and dogs are in the clinic for about a year and are mostly provided by Ingham County Animal Control. After the year is up, the clinic looks for homes for the animals.
“It’s death - or us,” said Gretchen McDaniel, a licensed veterinary technician at the Veterinary Teaching Hospital. “I feel good because we are saving the lives of the animals that come to us as patients, but also we are saving the lives of the animals who are at animal control.
“It really becomes a good socialization process for the animals and makes them better pets. They come to us because nobody wants them.”
Animals could need blood for various reasons, including injuries from a car accident or surgery.
The donor animals, both those brought in by their owners and those housed at the clinic, give blood every 21 days. Cats donate two ounces and dogs donate a pint.
The animals coming from animal control are not always housebroken and have different mental states. But upon leaving the clinic, most of the animals are housebroken and are less fearful of humans and other animals, McDaniel said.
“Most of them are better able to be adopted and they will be more successful than they were when we got them,” McDaniel said. “This is not where I’d want them to live the rest of their lives. It’s a stressful place to live, but they get handled and played with a lot.
Alice Parr, a licensed veterinary technician, said some of the animals are wild, but most of them are well-behaved.
“The wild ones, we call them our problem children,” she said.
Students, staff and community members are welcome to walk the clinic’s blood donor dogs and visit the cats.
First-year vet-med students, Maika Symkowiak and Kate Hohauser come to the hospital when they have a chance.
“Whenever we can, we like to stop in,” Symkowiak said.
“He’s so cute,” Hohauser said of Otis, a multicolored male donor cat whom Parr, because of his wild personality, refers to as a problem child.
The animals are always physically healthy and are held only to donate blood for the patients of the veterinary hospital, Parr said.
“Most people, when they hear university, think research, but we don’t do any research at this clinic,” Parr said.
Steve Hummel, deputy director for Ingham County Animal Control, said most animals he sees at the control center come in as strays and about 20 percent are surrendered by their owners for various reasons.
Hummel says MSU’s Small Animal Blood Donor Program is a good way to prolong the lives of unwanted animals.
“There’s a lot of pets here that need a home,” he said. “Ideally, I’d rather see them go into a home right away, but it’s certainly better than the alternative.”
The Small Animal Veterinary Clinic has animals up for adoption. To fill out an application and have an interview, or for more information on the blood donation program, please contact McDaniel or Parr at (517)353-5420.
Megan Frye can be reached at fryemega@msu.edu.
