WITH three visits under his belt, Murphy is a veteran at giving blood.

However, he does not have a little book with stamps to record each visit and, instead of a cup of tea and a biscuit, he gets a bowl of fatty meat.

Murphy is a five-year-old lurcher and one of a growing number of dogs signed up to give blood at the Stanhope Road veterinary practice, in Darlington.

The practice started taking blood from dogs, ready to use in transfusions, to increase the chances of sick and injured dogs surviving operations.

Now, they are urging more dog owners to come forward to increase the number of potential donors.

Head nurse Sarah Metcalfe said: "It is not a routine thing and generally we use it for dogs that have been in road accidents, or have operations where we're going to need a lot of blood.

"For a lot of them, it is a case of life or death."

Donor dogs have a needle put into their neck and a line attached, with about 250ml of blood taken out and the whole process lasting just three minutes.

Some dogs are given a local anaesthetic if they are nervous, but for most it is a quick procedure.

Once it is finished they can look forward to a rest and a nice meal.

Sarah said: "We give them a fatty meal more or less straight away and we advise the owners that they don't get over-exercised for a few hours.

"We only take blood off a dog once every five months, but we have never seen any ill-effects."

Blood taken from a dog can be given to any other dog, although the practice does not transfuse blood from two donors into one patient.

However, with the donated blood only keeping for up to four weeks, donors are usually only called upon when there is an immediate need.

Sarah said: "When we need blood we ring around and see who can get here the quickest, but we always need more.

"People are so chuffed when they put their names down for their dog to be a donor."