Pet owners donor programme

Information for pet owners

When faced with the loss of your dog you may like to consider the health benefits to other dogs from tissue donation.  Advances in veterinary surgery, just as in human surgery, now mean that tissue donation can help cure conditions in other dogs and cats. Tissue donation may help recipients with broken bones, bone cancer, or ligament or tendon rupture. Your gesture of donation in a time of loss may have huge benefits for many other pets. You might like to talk to your family and vet about this decision.

Typically, donors are young or middle aged adults in who have been involved in major trauma, or may have had to be euthanased due to chronic pain or behavioural problems such as aggression. Some people do find their loss slightly easier to bear in the knowledge that they have helped other pets in need.

To authorize donation of tissues to the veterinary tissue bank you must sign a consent form - your vet can guide you on this. After euthanasia or death, your pet is placed in the care of Veterinary Tissue Bank and we operate to the highest ethical standards to retrieve tissue carefully. If you wish for your pet to have a private cremation afterwards, we can arrange this and return the individually-cremated ashes to you. In addition, you can enter your pet’s details with a message in our remembrance gallery as a tribute to donors.

All costs for tissue recovery are paid for by Veterinary Tissue Bank. There is no cost to you for these services.

If you wish to speak to a representative from Veterinary Tissue Bank regarding tissue donation, please call us on 01691 778769, or e.mail us on info@vtbank.org.