Blood buddies' puppy love goes to bone
A PUREBRED six-week-old pup owes her life to a blood transfusion from a gentle greyhound more than 15 times her size.
Cairns resident Sami Knoblock had a tearful reunion with her English Staffordshire terrier yesterday after their scary ordeal.
Ms Knoblock said her dog, Buddy, was vomiting and could hardly lift her 1.6kg body to stand on Tuesday night.
She rushed her sick dog to Brinsmead Veterinary Surgery where Greencross principal surgeon Max Fargher found a hookworm infestation that had caused a massive haemorrhage.
With Buddy at death's door, Dr Fargher raced home to get his trusty pooch Hurley, a male, six-year-old 34kg
greyhound.
Dr Fargher then performed a transfusion by transferring a "drop" of Hurley's blood - 120ml - to Buddy.
He said a young dog's first blood transfusion could be from any donor dog, but if it needed a second, it would have been a far trickier situation.
"I wasn't 100 per cent confident it was going to work - Buddy only has 120ml (of blood in her system) and the transfusion simply replaced it," he said.
"When Sami brought her in, her (Buddy's) gums and eyes had no colour - she was white as a ghost. She was on her last legs.
"We needed to be quick - she only had three-quarters of an hour.
"Once it (the hookworm) gets into the guts … it just bleeds the dog dry," he said.
Ms Knoblock, 23, said she had only owned her pup for five days after buying her from a breeder at Gayndah in the Central Burnett region.
Dr Fargher said Buddy could have caught the hookworm three to four weeks ago.
Ms Knoblock said she had since asked the breeders to help foot the $650 vet bill, but they had refused.
"She's been running around like nothing happened," she said.
"We were going to wait until the morning but she would not have made it overnight. It's been quite teary - I'm just happy she is home."
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Lucky dog: Buddy thanks her mate Hurley for the live-saving blood transfusion. The pup nearly died from a hookworm infestation. Picture: MARC McCORMACK
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