Kidney disease is relatively common in cats and is a frequent cause of both morbidity and mortality.  There have been significant advances in reducing morbidity by feeding specialised diets and their use also appears to extend life expectancy.  Some drug treatments have also assisted in treatment.  However neither of these techniques reduces mortality significantly, only delays it.

The animal welfare arguments for and against organ transplants may be divided into those affecting the recipient and those affecting the donor.  From the discussion above it is obvious that there are significant benefits for the recipient.  However animals which have undergone a transplant require relatively intensive post-operative monitoring for the remainder of their lives.  Such monitoring includes frequent blood sampling and may require kidney biopsy.  Thus while there are significant benefits to the recipient there are also some costs.

In the human field there are two sources of donor: live voluntary donors and living but dying donors.  The former give their organs voluntarily after informed consideration.  The latter are people seriously terminally injured or terminally ill who are generally on life support systems and are maintained on those systems until organs can be harvested.  In the animal field the resources to provide the latter category of donor do not exist and, because most terminally ill animals are euthanased, are unlikely to be established.  Clearly no animal can give informed consent.

The removal of an organ is a significant operation and it is inevitable that the animal will suffer some pain and/or distress as a result.  It is the view of the Pet Advisory Committee that causing such pain or distress to an animal for no benefit to that individual animal cannot be justified.  Consequently PAC does not approve of the use of live donor animals.

The only other possibility is to sacrifice the life of the donor to provide an organ for the recipient.  While this would not involve any direct cruelty, it is ethically unacceptable to sacrifice one animal for the sake of another.  In addition all major animal welfare charities in UK have said they will not re-home animals either as live donors or as sacrificial donors.  It is therefore difficult to see what legal source there could be for such animals.

The donation of blood does not involve a significant procedure.  Donor dogs do not generally require sedation and there is no long-term effect on the animal’s wellbeing.  Cats are likely to require sedation but this causes no pain and minor stress.  For the recipient, blood transfusion is frequently the difference between life and death and there are no common long-term effects.  Accordingly the Pet Advisory Committee approves of the use of blood transfusion where such a procedure is likely to save the life of the recipient.