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Weimaraners Needed to Help Save the Lives of Other Dogs!
Could your Weimaraner be a lifesaver? The charity Pet Blood Bank UK is seeking happy, confident, and healthy Weimaraners to become vital blood donors to help save other dogs in need.
Just like humans, dogs often need blood transfusions due to surgery, trauma, or disease. These blood transfusions can be lifesaving and mean so much to the owners of dogs who have needed them. Dogs like Weimaraner, Grace, who is here today having received a blood transfusion.
Weimaraners are especially important when it comes to dog blood donations as they are more likely to have the rarer negative blood type. Only 30% of dogs have this blood type but it is in very high demand because it can be given to any dog in an emergency. The other 70% of dogs have positive blood type. This means Weimaraners are even more vital to Pet Blood Bank as they are one of only a small list of breeds that tend to have this blood type.
Marie Dennis is the owner of Weimaraner Grace. Following a gastropexy operation in September 2019 where Grace’s spleen was removed after unstoppable bleeding, a blood transfusion thankfully saved her life. She has since survived a pyometra and haemorrhagic gastroenteritis, but at over 14 years old, she loves life! As a way of giving back following Grace’s transfusion, Marie’s other dog Liberty is now a blood donor with Pet Blood Bank.
Marie said, ‘We don’t know how long Grace has now, but every day is a precious bonus which we are making the most of. Her life was saved by the plasma transfusion from Pet Blood Bank, for which I will be forever grateful.’
Pet Blood Bank operates very similarly to the human blood service, but for dogs. First your dog receives a health check from a vet before donating approximately 450ml of blood, which takes around 5-10 minutes. Even better than the human service, though, dogs receive treats all throughout the donation session, as well as plenty of fuss, attention, and cuddles from the team. Dogs even get a lovely tummy rub while lying on the table during their donation. In total, the donation appointment takes around 45 minutes.
If your Weimaraner is between 1 and 8 years old, weighs over 25kg, and is fit and healthy, they could be a lifesaver. Dogs should also be confident and enjoy meeting new people and having new experiences.
Every donation your dog gives can help to save the lives of up to four other dogs!
Register now on the website Pet Blood Bank
To whom it may concern,
My name is Samantha Brierley and I am a master’s student of Zoology with Animal Behaviour at Bangor University. My research investigates vocalisation behaviour in the domestic dog, and its potential to vary by breed. I am collecting behavioural data via an owner-directed questionnaire which asks about the typical vocal behaviour of a person’s dog.
This type of empirical research into vocalisation behaviour is the first of its kind for the species, allowing us to finally explore whether breeds show a consistent level of vocality, regardless of individual personality or environment, as is anecdotally assumed by many. This research can provide potential dog owners with scientifically accurate information regarding how vocal or noisy a breed typically is, and in what ways, prior to acquisition of a dog. My aim is ultimately to reduce the rate of dogs unnecessarily relinquished to shelters due to unmet or violated behavioural expectations.
I am writing to you to request your aid in distributing this research questionnaire. Unfortunately, Weimaraners are routinely underrepresented or ignored in empirical studies. They are so uncommon that often, any data we do have for them cannot be appropriately analysed because there are too few individuals. During my third year dissertation, I reviewed behavioural literature for 162 breeds. Weimaraners were included in only three studies; this is very low in comparison to breeds such as Labradors, that were represented in 19/25 studies. In addition, one of these studies was a group study in which they were combined with several other breeds in their kennel club group during analysis, meaning we cannot discern anything about the Weimaraner's typical behaviour from this. This is usually done when the number of representatives for a breed is too low to be analysed individually. I am also unaware of any vocalisation stereotypes with Weimaraners, so it would be very interesting to see their results in this study! Your participation in this survey will allow us to properly investigate the vocal behaviour of this unique breed and represent them adequately in at least one part of the domestic dog behaviour field.
The survey is totally anonymous and requires ~10 minutes to complete. It asks several non-identifying demographic questions and experimental questions regarding the dog’s behaviour. The contents of this questionnaire have passed ethical review according to the University of Bangor’s code of research practice. Our digital survey tool and photograph-submission tool are GDPR-compliant and retain no identifiable or sensitive data.
We ask if you would distribute this survey to the members of your organisation. The survey is entirely voluntary, so it could be circulated via emails to members or provided as a link on your website/Facebook page, or both! The questionnaire is intended to be available for at least 6 weeks, dependent on the rate of responses. We would greatly appreciate you alerting your members to this opportunity to represent their breed in our research.
Thank you for taking the time to read this email. I have attached the survey contents (PDF) and our consent statement for you to see without launching the survey. The PDF shows all questions in the survey, though respondents will only receive certain questions depending on their answers to other questions. Here is the active link to the survey:
https://www.smartsurvey.co.uk/s/thedvqs/
Kind regards,
Sam
Samantha Brierley (MZOOL Zoology with Animal Behaviour)
School of Natural Sciences
Bangor University
