BREAKING: California Exits the Dark Ages, Opens Doors to Community Dog Blood Banks

PETA pushed for the good and investigated and exposed the bad, and now, a landmark bill has been passed! Gov. Gavin Newsom just signed California Assembly Bill 1282 into law, meaning that The Golden State has ditched its pernicious requirement that blood and other products for transfusions be obtained from dogs held captive and warehoused in “blood banks.” Until now, it was the only state that required blood sold for veterinary transfusions to come from hellholes like Hemopet, a sham greyhound “rescue” in Garden Grove, California, where PETA documented that workers took such massive amounts of blood from dogs, so often, that experts agreed that it was potentially dangerous.

PETA’s investigation into Hemopet and another blood bank that confined greyhounds in inhumane conditions exposed a cruel and secretive industry in which dogs were kept caged, sometimes for life, and we raised awareness of the number of veterinary clinics that help save sick and injured dogs’ lives by working with dog guardians who volunteer their large, calm, healthy dogs for blood draws.

PETA’s video exposés of The Pet Blood Bank (a Texas blood farm that, on the heels of our exposé, shut down and transferred 151 greyhounds into adoption programs) and Hemopet (above) unveiled the systemic suffering of dogs warehoused for blood. Our work informed eye-opening reports on this hidden industry by The Washington Post, the Los Angeles Times, and many other media outlets and set the stage for this groundbreaking win.

“Cheers went up at PETA today at the news that California is finally phasing out the operation of hellish facilities like Hemopet,” PETA Senior Vice President of Cruelty Investigations Daphna Nachminovitch said in response to the passage of the new law.

This historic triumph is also thanks to our members and supporters who—responding to PETA action alerts—urged their state legislators to permit new, community-based blood banks to open and collect blood from animals who live comfortably in homes with their guardians; the testimony of our own veterinarians; and the hard work of Social Compassion in Legislation, a vanguard voice championing landmark legislation for animals.

“Thanks to Gov. Newsom and the state legislature, California can soon welcome community blood banks, where healthy dogs can make a lifesaving difference for others and then return home to their loving families,” said Nachminovitch.

Thank you to everyone who used their voice and helped make this monumental victory for animals possible!

Take Action: Dogs Are Still Being Imprisoned for Blood

While the National Greyhound Association (NGA) claims to have barred its members from directly sending greyhounds to any blood bank operation, PETA exposed how members can apparently still send dogs to sham “rescues” like Hemopet. Join us in demanding that the NGA take immediate and decisive action to remove all operations that hold dogs captive for their blood from its list of acceptable facilities:

Are you a dog guardian? Please, urge your veterinarian not to purchase blood from dogs kept captive and to obtain it only from dogs who get to live as all of them should—in homes with loving families.