Owner’s relief as pioneering blood transfusion op saves Great Dane Merlin

A Great Dane’s life was saved thanks to a pioneering treatment which effectively saw him give himself a vital blood transfusion.

Four-year-old Merlin had lost more than five pints of blood and only a cell-salvage procedure, being used in Scotland for the first time, prevented him from dying.

Owner Graeme McClain, from Saltcoats, says he feared the worst before the groundbreaking procedure to cleanse, filter and return Merlin’s blood at the Vets Now pet hospital in Glasgow.

Graeme, a caravan park operations boss, had taken Merlin, who weighs in at a hefty 10 stone, to the vets after he was repeatedly sick.

“He had an operation at our vets when they discovered his intestine had attached itself above his stomach and needed to be put back,” said Graeme, 32.

“He was transferred to the Glasgow hospital for overnight observation but they discovered he had an internal bleed.

“Having two operations back to back under general anaesthetic is a big deal and we really thought we might lose him.”

Graeme and partner Charlotte had left Merlin at the hospital in the early evening and it wasn’t until 1.30am the next morning that they got the call to say he’d come through the operation okay.

“It apparently took a long time to stabilise his heart as there was such massive blood loss,” said Graeme. “We had no idea about this new procedure until afterwards.”

The hospital had just acquired the new kit, the only place in the UK to have it other than the Royal Veterinary College in London.

“Due to Merlin’s size we knew we wouldn’t have enough blood to replace what he was losing,” said Sheila McLellan, an emergency and critical care veterinary nurse at the Vets Now hospital.

“So we used our cell salvage machine for the first time. This allowed us to take Merlin’s blood from his abdomen and feed it into the machine which essentially washed and filtered the blood, allowing our emergency vets to give it straight back to him.

“We’re so glad we were able to save his life.”

The total bill for all the treatment came to just over £5,000, with £4,000 being covered by the insurance Graeme had taken out.

“I’d have paid the whole lot, whatever it took really,” said Graeme. “We can’t thank the vets and their new equipment enough for giving us our dog back.”