Each year, thousands of healthy greyhounds are euthanised due to overbreeding.
If that isn’t bad enough, there is another common practice that exploits greyhounds before their death. It’s called terminal blood donation.
Greyhounds have an ideal blood type for use in animal hospitals to treat patients requiring a blood transfusion. Most greys have a negative blood type which makes them universal donors.
They also have a gentle temperament, easily accessible veins and their blood has a high percentage of red blood cells. Before being euthanised, healthy greyhounds are bled dry and their blood is ironically supplied to animals that need life saving treatment.
Many like to think that terminal blood donation no longer goes on, but that’s not true. Queensland’s greyhound industry regulator actually collects statistics on greyhounds that are discarded to facilities such as labs, vet practices and universities.
In FY2021-22, Queensland racing industry dog owners gave 196 greyhounds to uni labs for experiments and to vet practices where they are bled out, then euthanised. Greyhounds given to labs are often killed after experiments, yet the racing industry has the gall to insist ‘they love their dogs’. There’s no reason to believe these practices don’t occur elsewhere in Australia, but the data is unavailable.
Terminal blood donation was first exposed in by the ABC-TV’s 7.30 Report in 2013. It showed how after continuously euthanising healthy greyhounds, vet nurse Victoria Luxton-Bain left her previous employer and joined an emergency practice which she hoped would save more animals rather than take their lives. However, this was when she was first exposed to the bleeding of greyhounds.
On the ABC 7.30 report, Luxton-Bian described having bled seven greyhounds in one day. The greyhound is put “under anaesthetic, bled, and then euthanised while under anaesthetic.” Many vet nurses and vets have expressed horror that the procedure is normalised in vet hospitals.
GIven the large number of healthy greyhounds being euthanised, terminal blood donation it is regarded as a solution for obtaining essential blood supplies. Bruce McKay, Director of the Veterinary Specialist Service in Brisbane, told the ABC he didn’t like the practice but believes it is an ethical way of acquiring blood.
“In an ICU like this, we have lots of critical patients that need blood transfusions. We have ethics approval by the QLD government and do on average between 50 and 100 a year. The price of using healthy greyhound for blood per litre is $150 opposed to the Melbourne blood bank’s cost of $400,” he said.
Fortunately, people in the veterinary industry have tried to combat the distressing procedure. Programs have been set up that that allow dogs, including re-homed greyhounds, to regularly donate blood. Many donor centres have been established in hospitals around the country, including one at at the Canine Blood Bank at The University Teaching Hospital in Sydney. Donation takes approximately 10-15 minutes and dogs can donate blood every three months.
These programs allows lifesaving blood to be supplied while avoiding healthy greyhounds being yet again exploited by humans.
ABC Online News – ‘Unwanted greyhounds routinely drained of blood then euthanised’, Sean Rubinsztein-Dunlop