A veterinary clinic in Cochrane is doing its part to boost the country’s supply of animal blood and held a collection clinic at its facility on Sunday.

There is a higher demand for blood products for pets over the holidays and The Canadian Animal Blood Bank supplies vet clinics across the country.

The organization provides blood for pets that require a transfusion as part of their care and depends on donations from Canadian animal clinics to meet demand.

Cochrane’s Arrowhead Veterinary Centre hosted its second donor clinic on Sunday and pet owners say it’s an important project.

“It’s very exciting, like really when you think about the science that they can take theirs, and do what they do with it and he can help so many different ones, it's an amazing feeling,” said Leeza Pierson.

“We’re doing this because it gives back to the community, to the dog community, to the pet owner community and we have a national shortage of blood right now and we have animals that come in on emergencies and need blood transfusions or blood products and there’s not enough blood available at times,” said Dr. Libby Fulton.

This is the second time that Pierson’s dog, Mac, has donated but vets say many people are not even aware of the need for animal blood products.

“Well I think we haven’t been very good about awareness for this type of thing, we're certainly trying to ramp that up and make people aware that there's a shortage and we have a national blood bank and we need blood products,” said Dr. Fulton.

The best canine candidates are dogs between one and eight years old and they have to weigh at least 25 kilograms and be up-to-date on vaccinations to take part.

Dogs have about nine different blood types and about 450 grams of blood is collected from each donor.

“If they're positive, it’s the most common blood type, about 75 percent of the dog population is this blood type, it's like a Type A in humans.  And if they're negative, it's like a Type O, and only 25 percent of the dog population is that blood type,” said Mary Robinson, with the Canadian Animal Blood Bank. “So it’s separated into different components, typically we do packed red cells, fresh frozen or regular plasma, cryoprecipitate and we can do platelets as well.”

Like human patients, the pets get a treat when they’re finished and are also given plenty of fluids.

“It's so funny, because typically they kind of get a bit euphoric afterwards, so a lot of owners think they're going to be really tired afterwards, but no unfortunately not,” said Robinson.

The Canadian Animal Blood Bank will be back in southern Alberta in the spring.

For more information and for upcoming clinics, click HERE.