LUCKY BREAK: The ginger cat (not pictured) was at death's door.

A gamble to give a transfusion of Labrador dog blood to a rapidly deteriorating cat has paid off with a quick recovery by the feline that had been at death's door.

It was realised that six-and-a-half-year-old ginger cat Rory needed a transfusion late on a Friday evening. There was not enough time to find his blood type by sending a sample to a laboratory before it closed.

Giving a cat just a millilitre of the wrong type of cat blood would kill it, vet Kate Heller of Tauranga Vets said.

It was suspected Rory, who had bled internally, had eaten a poisoned rat or got into someone's rat bait.

"Rory was going to die before we were going to get his blood type," Heller said.

"He was really dying before our eyes."

She talked to Rory's owners about the risks of giving the cat a blood transfusion from a dog and they decided to give it a go.

Cat-to-dog transfusions were given at times, although she had never done one before, Heller said.

"There are some significant risks of doing what we did. He could have died because of it. He would have died without it."

Rory's owner Kim Edwards knew someone with a Labrador, and the dog was rushed to the vets.

After starting the transfusion, Heller monitored Rory for an hour, then went home to have some dinner.

"I came back to check him after about an hour, and he was sitting up eating and purring. He responded really quickly to the transfusion," she said.