Will Harper County Allow Dogs to Be Imprisoned, Bled at Blood Bank? PETA Urges Commissioners to Vote ‘No’

For Immediate Release:
September 4, 2025

Contact:
Nicole Perreira 202-483-7382

Anthony, Kan. –

Ahead of the September 8 Harper County Board of Commissioners meeting, PETA today sent a letter to Chairman Brian Waldschmidt and the rest of the board urging them to deny an application to open a dog blood bank near Danville. PETA points out that every investigation it has conducted into animal blood banks—which are almost entirely unregulated—has found widespread neglect and suffering at these facilities, where hundreds of dogs and cats were bled regularly, even those who were elderly, emaciated, and sick with upper respiratory infections, bone cancer, and other issues.

The proposed Harper County operation would reportedly house approximately 100 dogs, who would be confined and bled regularly, apparently for their entire lives. The applicant, Jonathan Wilson, is neither a veterinarian nor a vet tech in Kansas and has admitted to not knowing whether he needs certifications to run the proposed business. More than 16,000 members of the public have joined PETA in contacting the board and urging it to kill the cruel proposal.

*A dog named Milo imprisoned at The Pet Blood Bank, Inc., in Cherokee, Texas, which closed and transferred 151 dogs into adoption programs following PETA’s* *exposé. Photo: PETA*

“Dogs and cats should live in loving homes where they are taken care of, but in animal blood banks, they are relegated to barren cages or crowded pens, denied any semblance of comfort or quality of life, and bled over and over until they die,” says PETA Vice President of Legal Advocacy Daniel Paden. “PETA urges the Board of Commissioners to toss out this application and keep captive animal blood banks out of Harper County.”

PETA notes that a blood bank prison would be not just cruel but pointless, given that community-based blood banks—where loving guardians volunteer their healthy companion animals to donate blood, similar to human blood banks—are already in operation at Kansas State University and VCA Central Kansas Animal Hospital in South Hutchinson.

PETA—whose motto reads, in part, that “animals are not ours to abuse in any way”—points out that Every Animal Is Someone and offers free Empathy Kits for people who need a lesson in kindness. For more information, please visit PETA.org or follow PETA on X, Facebook, or Instagram.