I know what you’ll say when you see the header: your host is having cognitive dissonance!
Indeed, I was going to start this post by saying that this report from the New York Daily News made me reassess my low opinion of d-gs, but then I realized that the dog didn’t donate blood voluntarily. Nevertheless, it’s an amazing example of an interspecific blood transfusion that actually worked. Thanks to reader Ronaldo for calling it to my attention.
I’m sure these transfusions have been tried before, but dogs and cats are separated by 55 million years of evolution: nearly ten times the temporal separation between humans and chimps. That’s a big difference between the blood proteins of dogs and the cat’s antibodies that could react negatively to them.
But I’m getting ahead of myself. What happened is this:
Rory, a ginger feline from New Zealand, was in dire need of a blood transfusion after he ate rat poison. However, it was late on a Friday evening and there wasn’t time for the laboratory to receive and match the right type of cat blood.
Tauranga vet Kate Heller told Stuff.co.nz that an ounce of the wrong type of blood would kill Rory, but there was a chance he could survive if given dog blood.
“There are some significant risks of doing what we did,” she said. “He could have died because of it. He would have died without it.”
Rory’s owner, Kim Edwards, enlisted the help of a friend who had a Labrador. Michelle Whitemore’s 18-month-old pup Macy was rushed to the vet so she could donate the necessary blood.
It did the trick, and Macy the dog saved Rory the cat’s life.
Now I’m sure you’re asking yourself, “D-g blood? Why couldn’t they get blood from another cat?” In fact, I asked myself that. But the answer apparently involves blood types, which cats seem to have in a similar way from humans (in the Landsteiner group, for example, I am type O, so I can donate blood to anyone who is O, A, B, or AB, but I am also Rh+, so I can donate only to other Rh+ people. This has to do with the antigens (proteins) on the surface of the blood cell.
I guess cats have a similar antigen-antibody system, so it might be risky to to take blood from a cat when it hasn’t been typed. So why dogs? New Zealand 3 News (where there’s a video) has the answer: cats don’t have pre-existing antibodies for dog blood, though they’d develop them after a single transfusion:
“He was dying. We didn’t have time for the cat blood to arrive or be matched,” says Rory’s owner, Kim Edwards.
It was Friday night and no labs were open to check his blood type, let alone get supplies. So vet Kate Heller sought advice and was told to try dog blood.
“I hadn’t heard about it or read about it. It’s not in any textbook,” says Ms Heller.
Rory needed a donor fast. So Ms Edwards thought fast and phoned a friend in her book club.
“[I had] never heard of anything like that before. I thought she was joking,” says Macy’s owner, Michelle Whitemore.
But Rory desperately needed the 18-month-old Labrador. Macy was rushed to the vet where she donated 120ml of blood, and within an hour Rory the cat was saved.
“It was one of those situations that it was a do-or-die. So, he would have died if we did nothing,” says Ms Heller.
It may sound wacky, but it’s science. Cats don’t have antibodies that reject dogs’ blood, so a transfusion may buy enough time for the cat to regenerate its own red blood cells. But only one transfusion can be done because a second dose of dog blood will be the death of the cat.
“He is not out fetching the newspaper or peeing on power poles or barking yet! He is just the normal cat that we have – playful, friendly,” says Ms Edwards.
LOL!
But I’m not so mean-spirited that I can’t at least give a tip of the hat to Macy the d-g.
If you know of other interspecific blood transfusions that worked, do weigh in below.
Blood donation by horseshoe crabs has saved many lives. Not actually through transfusion though.
At least the cat looks grateful in that pic. Uh.. sort of.
not so much, actually…
Actually, the cat looks a bit ruff. 🙂
A liitle out of phase, but…
And the dog looks like she’s the cat’s whiskers.
Blood brothers?
+1
Interesting story. Dogs have always’ve been there to help humans and now even c*ts. This is my first comment and maybe my last : I prefer dogs to cats !
Yes, yes, we all have canines. Small ones, mind, implying that hominids are somewhat self-tamed. But some goes on to be adopted by cats.
No worries. Our golden retriever voluntarily nursed two small kittens. Later it their lives all three would curl up and sleep together.
And then there’s this example: http://goo.gl/VQjrX0
Although why the zoo would want to take the piglets away from their biological mother beats me.
The surrogate mother does not see the piglets as potential food because she had originally been raised by a sow as part of an earlier project.
The zoo in question did it because it attracts more tourists that way.
Cracker to people? Oh, but they eated ’em.
Technically xenotransfusion can be performed multiple times if done within 4-6 days of the first transfusion (it takes time for the cat to make antibodies to the foreign canine antigen). The article linked below gives a brief synopsis/timeline of published literature, and provides a fairly simple and easy to understand explanation without going into the details of blood typing.
http://jfm.sagepub.com/content/15/2/62.long
Wrapping one’s mind around feline blood transfusions takes time, and it’s becoming even more confusing due to additional RBC antigens being discovered. Types A, B, and AB blood have been the typical categories used in vet med for quite some time, but more antigens are now being thrown into the mix (i.e. the Mik antigen). Learning more all the time…
I’m not sure I get this. If antibodies are seen 4-7 days after transfusion, there must be memory before then. Perhaps the subsequent transfusion triggers some kind of regulatory response.
A few interesting links:
http://jfm.sagepub.com/content/early/2012/09/13/1098612X12460530.abstract
http://www.wired.com/science/discoveries/news/2007/06/dayintech_0615
http://www.jehsmith.com/philosophy/2011/05/blood-transfusion-and-pythagoreanism-in-the-royal-society.html
http://www.cabdirect.org/abstracts/19710101082.html;jsessionid=EC75F993CA8E11FEB3FD78AB6F416DF9
Cool stuff. Thanks.
That’s awesome!
Receiving that blood has turned Rory into….
Catula! Now he only comes out at night! He likes to bite prey on the neck while they are still alive! He’s gained an almost supernatural ability to climb things! He will secretly sneak in your room at night and lay next to you, and you’ll never know it!
Yes, Catula! That dreaded monster from…uh, what? They all do that? Never mind then.
Or maybe he suddenly wants to play fetch and chew bones! It would vindicate Jehovah Witnesses who think you become the person who you got blood from or something like that – at least that’s what the JW kids told us. 🙂
Did you hear about the vampire gazelle?
Vlad the Impala!
+1
It turns out that President Putin smokes reefer. Vlad the Inhaler.
Next time, a bit of warning so I can put down the water glass, okay?
Oh — and you owe me a new keyboard…though, at least my sinuses are clean….
b&
I did not know dogs and cats could share blood under any circumstances.
I am B+ which I am told is rare among caucasians. I always make jokes with asian friends that I’m friends with them because they can donate blood to me so! 😀 The jokes never stop when you’re friends with me.
B+ is fairly common in England and Scotland, Spain, and Greece, but far less common in other parts of Europe. Interestingly, these are the only parts of Europe where the languages have dental fricatives, the “th” sounds. Makes you wonder.
B Pluth??
Thanks. Now I have cola all over my monitor.
LOL!
Here is a map of blood type distribution. I have a friend with northern Indian heritage so I told her that she can give me some blood too 🙂
http://goo.gl/m9lhDj
I know I’m Scot-English. I’m B Positive.
On the subject of contractions…the proper conjugation in this case wouldn’t be, “I’m B Positive,” but, rather, “I be positive.” And, if you wish to add a suitable intensifier, you wouldn’t do it with selective use of capitalization, but rather something such as, “I be positive, motherfucker!”
Cheers,
b&
I thank thee for thy reproof and instruction, and incline in thy direction, Kind Sir.
Once, in response to a student reflecting out loud to his classmates, upon hearing my utterances:
“This cracker be trippin’. He talk like de man on de TV.”
To which I responded, simultaneously dancing (I had been practicing):
“Chicken noodle soup! Chicken noodle soup!
Chicken noodle soup, with de soda on de side!
Let it rain, clear it out!
Let it rain, clear it out!”
OKaaaayyyyy…please elucidate da chicken noodle soup trope….
I’ll admit: even after Googling the reference and watching the video, I must still be much too white (and, likely, by this point, much too old) to make heads nor tails of it.
Would I be correct in guessing that you teach inner city youth in a public school?
If so, you’re fuckin’ insane, at least a little…and I salute and thank you.
Cheers,
b&
For some reason, I now feel oddly compelled to add:
Cheers,
b&
I am a B+ caucasian, and no one has ever so much as raised an eyebrow.
Seem to be a lot of us in this camp, and so one might wonder about an association with skepticism.
There used to be a synthetic blood substitute used in veterinary medicine called Oxyglobin, developed from bovine hemoglobin. It was great – you didn’t need to type or cross, it was stable at room temp, and could be used in canines OR felines. It was also good because, since it didn’t contain red blood cells, patients with immune-mediated hemolytic anemia (where the body attacks its own RBCs) got longer lasting benefit from it than they would have from a typical transfusion.
Interestingly, while there wasn’t much danger of an anaphylactic reaction due to typing issues (because there weren’t any red blood cells in it) the body did start to break the Oxyglobin down comparatively quickly, which would (transiently) turn the patient’s skin and mucous membranes an interesting shade of orange.
Sadly, Oxyglobin isn’t available in the US any longer. IIRC, the company that made it, Biopure, was working on human trials that went poorly and the company stopped producing it.
On the subject of blood types, both my parents are A+, but I’m O+. Gregor Mendel would have been thrilled, because it’s an unambiguous identification of their genotypes; obviously, they both carry the recessive gene.
Cheers,
b&
Someone with A blood type either has AA blood, or AO blood. if they both have AO blood they have a good chance of passing on the O and not the A to their offspring.
My mom is O & my dad is B+. You can’t be BO but I so badly wanted to be!
And, if you could, imagine if you had a child with another B. Better hope said child was a boy, or else BOB would have as hard a time as Sue.
Cheers,
b&
“It was Gatlinburg in mid-July,
When I hit town my throat was dry;
Thought I’d stop and have myself a brew . . . .”
Ah, a summer 1969 song, mentioning my home town – the biggest little Peyton Place in the world – back when they birthed babies there, where me mudder dropped me.
As he basically chants or speaks the song, and it has no identifiable melody legitimizing it as as music, I wonder if this was a protypical example of Rap or Hip-Hop? (Perhaps not, as Red Sovine simiarly spoke “Phantom 309.”)
Spoken recitation set to music is at least as old as song, and possibly older.
See Sprechstimme for the most widespread example in 20th Century art music, and recitative for the most developed form in Western art music.
It’s also a time-honored and well-respected method for non-singers to perform songs: recite the lyrics (close to) in tempo but in a spoken, not sung, voice. That’s especially done in ballads. In Sue, Cash was imitating that style. He, of course, had one of the greatest singing voices of the 20th Century; it was obviously an affectation.
Cheers,
b&
Loved Cash’s late albums, called something like American
My mom and my sister are both B negative. They were surprised to learn that I’m an A+, which I guess clearly identifies both my mom and my dad’s genotypes.
Plenty of variety in my family. Dad was B+, my sister is O, my brother AB and I’m B+. From that mum must have been an A.
That antibodies should be antigens, and that antigens should be antibodies.
Yes, also noted. (NB jac).
Yep, I was typing too fast. I’ve fixed it, thanks!
But I’m not so mean-spirited that I can’t at least give a tip of the hat to Macy the d-g.
For that I elevate you from radical, strident caninophobe to caninimudgeon (or something like that).
And relatedly, Google Images for:
dog nursing tiger cubs
to see numerous examples. (They’ve also been known to provide the same service for kittens.)
Interesting. What I recall from university is the importance of the AB type system is that we are exposed to AB antigens by other means (pollen is one channel, IIRC) and develop antibodies to A or B or both if we don’t have them. That’s why it’s important to get that type correct even if a person has never had a transfusion before.
There is another blood antigen complex (MN) that only needs to be matched for people getting repeated transfusion, because there is no environmental exposure to the MN antigens. A transfusion mismatch would be the first exposure to those antigens.
Don’t know of any other dog to cat transfusions, but I know of many dog-cat friendships. Dogs are good folks too, as are cats. I have known cats to defend their dog against another cat, for that matter.
Well I don’t know about interspecific blood swapping, but recall that Galton famously disproved his cousin’s pangenesis theory transfusing blood between rabbits –
http://galton.org/bib/JournalItem.aspx_action=view_id=45
Ithaca Firefighters, SPCA Rescue Kitten From Drain Pipe
With squee photos.