Help Cats and Dogs Imprisoned for Blood: Contact Your Vet Today

A PETA undercover investigation into The Veterinarians’ Blood Bank (TVBB)—a crude operation in Indiana that keeps nearly 900 dogs and cats confined to barren kennels and crowded pens for life—found that workers bled animals who were elderly, emaciated, medicated, and sick, including with upper respiratory infections or bone cancer. TVBB sells the animals’ blood to major veterinary chains with hospitals across the U.S.

Even though PETA notified TVBB’s customers of the suffering at their blood supplier—and of the potential dangers of giving blood from sick and medicated animals to those in need of blood transfusions, who are typically critically ill or injured themselves—several veterinary hospital chains have failed to address this urgent issue or even respond at all.

Thousands of concerned PETA supporters have also contacted the corporate heads of BluePearl Pet Hospitals, VCA Animal Hospitals, MedVet, and Ethos Veterinary Health, only to be met with silence. Do you take your animal companion to a veterinary clinic operated by one of these chains? If so, we need your help!

Please contact your local BluePearl, VCA, MedVet, or Ethos clinic and ask it to reconsider any relationship it and its owners have with TVBB. Urge your veterinarian to obtain blood only from dogs and cats who live in homes as beloved family members and are volunteered by their guardians for periodic blood donations.

Click below to find contact information for your local hospital.

Contact Your Local BluePearl Pet Hospital Clinic

 E-mail addresses for each BluePearl location can be found on its website.

Contact Your Local VCA Animal Hospital Clinic

Online contact forms for each VCA location can be found on its website’s “Contact Us” page.

Contact Your Local MedVet Clinic

E-mail addresses for each MedVet location can be found on the directory page linked above.

Contact Your Local Ethos Veterinary Hospital Clinic

Online contact forms for most Ethos hospitals can be found on their websites’ “Contact Us” pages. Note that hospitals in the Ethos Veterinary Health network go by their own local names, so you may not know they’re part of the Ethos network until you search the directory above.

Feel free to draw from the example below, but remember that using your own words will help call attention to your message. Note that some online contact forms may have character limits.

As a customer, I was shocked to learn that The Veterinarians’ Blood Bank—an Indiana business that imprisons nearly 900 cats and dogs for life—says it sells blood to your chain. TVBB drew blood from sick, elderly, emaciated, and medicated animals, even though using such blood can be dangerous to the critically ill and injured recipients of emergency transfusions. Please reconsider any relationship your hospital has with TVBB and obtain blood only from healthy animals who live in homes with loving families.

Send Your Vet This Article for More Information!

Follow up by calling your veterinary clinic or having an in-person conversation with your veterinarian.

 Here are some suggested talking points:

• As a customer of [clinic name], I urge you to reconsider any relationship your location has with The Veterinarians’ Blood Bank, an Indiana business that keeps hundreds of dogs and cats confined for life to sell their blood to veterinary clinics.
• Workers drew blood for sale from elderly and emaciated dogs and from animals sick with bone cancer, infections, or other maladies.
• If my dog or cat needed a blood transfusion, I’d expect the blood they received to be healthy and uncontaminated. But if your location purchases blood from TVBB, I worry that it would put my sick or injured animal companion at risk.
• Please obtain blood only from animals who live in loving homes with loving families and are volunteered for periodic blood donations by their guardians.

If staff at the hospital refer to the current blood shortage, here are some additional points:

• There wouldn’t be a blood shortage if the veterinary community invested more in community-based blood banks. What is your location doing to address this situation?
• If patients receive blood purchased from TVBB, there’s a good chance it was taken from animals who were themselves sick or medicated—putting the health of the recipient animal at risk. Wouldn’t you rather see that the “donor” animal was a healthy member of the community?
• Your hospital’s mission is to help animals, but if you purchase blood from TVBB, you’re supporting a business that causes animal suffering.

Let Us Know How Your Call Went

Looking for more ways to help? Share this alert with your community Facebook groups (be sure to select “Share in a Group”) and with your neighbors on Nextdoor!

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