In October 2013 my dog was diagnosed in Virginia as having a 5 cm tumor on his liver.  Both the radiologist and diagnostic veterinarian agreed that it was only a matter of time -- but not very long.

Eventually the animal became so uncomfortable and swollen from internal bleeding that it was clear he was in misery.

With a heavy heart I took him for his final walk to the Georgetown Veterinary Hospital in Washington, DC.  Fortunately Dr. Morgan knew the dog well enough to have a hunch that the diagnosis was overly pessimistic.  He offered to try to save the animal for whatever I could pay.  When we discovered just how much blood had been lost to internal bleeding I was very fortunate to find a donor dog.

A week later my dog is back to his old mischief.

That good fortune to find a donor, and my debt of gratitude to Dr. Morgan, inspired me to prepare this site.  I hope this registry of available blood donors will help save other dogs in our communities.

           Win Wiencke

Quite a few people have volunteered time and expertise.  No one is paid.

Amy Waggoner who contributed her considerable skill as a graphic designer to create business cards to help publicize the DogDonor.com effort.  Contact us if you'd like to have some cards to distribute.

Pat Ampulla is helping with managing the server and programming.

Lee Morgan, DVM, has helped select what information we need to gather and the pesky catalog of blood alleles.

The folks at Image Logic Corporation provide access to a dedicated server to host the site.

Win Wiencke did the day to day organizing and built the database.

Apart from prowling through the site looking for ways to communicate more effectively Rick Hofmann let himself get dragooned into writing press releases.

It would be a grievous omission not to thank Woody and Luca for being the first to test the pages on current Apple browsers, Alessandro for testing pages on *nix browsers and helping with CSS, JavaScript and HTML coding, and Michele who walked dogs and cooked meals so we'd have "just a bit more time" to work on the site.

Countless others, like Kat, have kindly taken a moment to look at the site and comment on bugs, grammatical errors, and generally help ensure that the pages communicate.

The site is a simple way to make a community more dog friendly and at the same time encourage the economic benefits of having veterinary practices in the neighborhood.

We don't have printed material.  We would never dream of sending out e-mail SPAM or paying the big data folks to list DogDonor.com prominently on their search engines.  And there's not a heck of a lot to say on the social media.

It's the people like you with a common interest in both their community and dogs who get the word out.

They are if you're willing to put in the 40 hours or so a year to make it happen!

Our original region is in Washington DC.  The "region" has a 4,000 foot radius.

The system is designed to support additional regions anywhere in Washington, DC, or the United States.  Each region is totally independent, can cover larger or smaller areas and can overlap other regions.

If you want to set up a new region you will need two coordinators to answer e-mail, someone to generate a list of local veterinarians, someone to show the local veterinarians how to record blood types or blood donations, and a way to publicize DogDonor.com in your area.  You will also need the geo-coordinates of the region's center and the radius in yards or miles.  Then contact us.

 

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