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My dog's blood test shows abnormal platelets. Should I worry?

Updated On September 23rd, 2025

Pet's info: Dog | Pointer | Male | neutered | 6 years and 3 months old | 52 lbs

Hi, I just had these bloods back for my dog and the vet said all was good then i noticed after that the column San-Plaquetas San-Agregados Plaquetares show an abnormal result and suspicious what are these values for and should i be concerned ? I am assuming not as the vet did not mention however i would like to becertain and since i have not been able to get hold of the vet to ask. I have attached one of the pages of his results which i think show all the details a Many thanks

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2 Answers

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Answered By David Elbeze, DVM, MRCVS

Veterinarian

Published on April 11th, 2018

Hello, the low number of platelets is very common in automatic blood test done by a machine, machines tend to undercount the number of platelets and it is considered to be not accurate, for this reason the vet will usually do a blood smear and count the platelets manually. i would definitely not be worried about that.

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    Answered By Jenny, DVM

    Veterinarian

    Published on April 5th, 2018

    Platelet counts can be artificially low depending on the quality of blood draw and sample. Some patients wiggle or the blood does not go in to the tube fast enough. when this happens, the blood has time to clot. Clotting is what the platelets do, so the counts can be artificially low. Often times if there is concern you can retest a sample or actually look at the blood under the microscope to see the platelets that are there when the machine didn't count then due to already clotting. If there are no bleeding problems or bruising then I would not worry

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