How is blood drawn from my dog?

On the average size dog, meaning let's say anywhere from Labradors on down, most blood panels that have to we pull require a jugular stick from the jugular vein. If we're simply putting a heartworm test for lab work, that just takes a few drops of blood. We can usually pull that from a front leg or cephalic vein. But suppose we have to pull enough blood to do a CBC, chemistry, or any kind of send-off test. In that case, that usually requires several milliliters of blood, and it's usually more efficient, quicker, and safer for the dog if we pull it from a jugular sample.

The simple answer is from the vein. That might include the cephalic vein. We may draw from a leg or the neck—from the jugular vein—those would be the most common areas.

Come over here, and I'll show you. This is our dog, Oakley, and he is getting blood work done today. You can take it from their neck or leg vein, and Kathy will show you how we do this. We insert it gently through the skin, and we have good lighting. We'll just be patient here for a second. Emma here was holding off the blood vessel, and we will draw just enough. Emma will be a bandaid, and Kathy will put it in our special tubes. Ethan's in charge of feeding Emma a cookie if he is a good boy. Emma will let him sit up here in a minute, and then he can have a cookie.

Very similar to how blood is drawn in humans, we do actually take a needle and get a sample directly from their veins in one of their four legs. Very commonly, this gives us the sample that we need, and it's very non-invasive for most of our canine patients.