Canine Heart Murmur
From LoveToKnow Dogs
If your dog's heartbeat doesn't sound the way it should, it's possible that he or she has a canine heart murmur.
Health Implications of Heart Murmurs in Dogs
For some dogs, having a heart murmur doesn't have significant health consequences. Many dogs that develop murmurs never develop heart health problems that impact their quality of life or longevity. For others, the condition can be severe and can cause a wide variety of health problems.
Diagnosing Canine Heart Murmur
Only a veterinary professional can diagnose canine heart murmurs, and they can be difficult to verify simply by listening to the heartbeat. Heartbeat irregularities in puppies are sometimes detected at birth. Murmurs sometimes show up during annual checkups with older dogs. In other cases, pet owners may notice that something just doesn’t seem right about the sound of their dog's heartbeat. If you notice anything unusual about your pet's heartbeat, you should immediately make an appointment with your veterinarian for an official diagnosis.
The process of diagnosing a dog's heart murmur isn't that different from confirming the presence or absence of the same problem in a human. The initial examination will involve listening to the heart with a stethoscope. If a murmur is present, the heartbeat will make a softer, longer sound than the steady, short thump of a normal canine heartbeat. However, in many cases murmurs are very faint, and can't be confirmed without further testing.
When a murmur is suspected, veterinarians typically follow up a general exam by running an electrocardiogram (ECG) to determine if there is a problem with the dog's heart. If necessary, the ECG may be followed up with an echocardiogram and chest X-rays to determine the extent of the problem and/or damage that it may have caused.
Diagnostic Tests
- Electrocardiogram: ECG tests can reveal if there is a problem with your dog's heart. This test allows the vet to measure the heart rate and determine whether or not there are abnormal heart rhythms.
- Echocardiogram: This procedure allows the veterinary professional to determine if there are problems with the valves of your dog's heart and to determine how well the heart if functioning. This test helps the vet decide if your pet needs treatment for his or her heart condition.
- X-Ray: Viewing radiographic images of your dog's heart allows the veterinarian to see if there seem to be any abnormalities of the cardio-pulmonary system related to heart problems.
What Causes Heart Murmurs in Dogs
There are several possible causes of murmurs. If diagnostic testing reveals that your dog has a heart murmur, the next step toward determining the best course of action is to identify both the severity of the problem and its underlying cause.
Birth Defect
Some puppies are born with heart murmurs. These types of murmurs are considered to be congenital birth defects.
Anemia
Murmurs in dogs can also be caused by anemia. In such cases, the best course of action is to figure out what is causing the dog to experience anemia. Dog parasites, for example, can cause anemia. In such situations, getting rid of the parasites may cure the anemia and eliminate the heart murmur.
Heart Valve Disease
In some cases, murmurs in dogs are caused by mitral valve disease. With age, or as a result of high blood pressure or other cardiac disease conditions, the mitral valves weaken and blood leaks from them into the heart's atrium instead of being pumped out as it should. This leakage results in the audible murmur sound. This problem is more common in older dogs than younger ones, and represents the most serious form of heart murmur.
Treating Your Dog's Heart Murmur
When puppies are born with murmurs, treatment is not recommended right away unless there are signs of significant health problems associated with the murmur. As with human children, congenital heart murmurs often disappear with age. In most cases, it will take a few years to determine if a canine heart murmur is a serious problem or one that is self-correcting. In many cases, no treatment is necessary. Depending on the overall health and age of the affected dog, many heart murmur problems that do not go away on their own can be corrected via surgical procedures.
A Word of Caution
Dogs that are diagnosed with any type of hereditary heart problem should not be bred in order to avoid passing on congenital heart health problems to future generations..
Comments
Hi Susan,
From what you described at the beginning of your first post, it sounds as though your dog has had some seizures. Seizures are generally controlled with phenobarbitol. Obviously there is something going on with the irregular heart beat, so it's quite possible your dog is suffering from two separate health issues.
I'm not a vet, so I don't want to speculate too much about your current vet's choice of treatment. My best advice is to schedule a consultation with a different vet to find out if it is customary for a vet to discontinue heart medication if a client can't keep up with the cost of monthly ECGs. There may be a good reason that the medication needs to be monitored in this way, but the second vet should be able to tell you that if there is.
Perhaps another visitor has input about a similar situation. Thanks for sharing your own situation, and I hope a second opinion will help you sort everything out. Best wishes
-- Contributed by: Kellyhi to cntinue my last message i would just like to say that the dog also is very fit, and loves going out for walks, she has no shortness of breath at all, and she can run for miles, shes a very active dog,with such a great temprement, she wouldnt hurt a fly, and has never shown any aggrestion at all,also she has been hip scored and has perfectly good hips,(which is what the vet first thought that it could be, untill she seen her jump about so healtherly)but she then decided after the test that it was her heart, she has been on the medication for around 6 weeks now, so how long does it take before it gets in to the system and start doing what it shoul be doing, my vet says that it s around 3 weeks, but why is it not making her heart beat normal then by now, please please i hope someone comes up with some answers for me-thanks.
-- Contributed by: susanhi, i took my dog(a german shepherd ...) to vet as she was having what i thought was fits,(shes 4 in august)what she goes like is that she tends to look for corners and lies down and her front legs seems to be trying to walk and her back legs also do the same, and she is fully awake while this is going on,her mouth is a little slavery but she is not foaming at the mouth and it only last for around say 2 mins, and then she walks a little even though a bit wobbly on her back legs for a moment and then she is fine,its as though nothing is wrong with her at all, anyway took her to vet who lisened to her heart and said that it wasnt beating properly, she had an heart ultra sound(which should her heart was right size and blood from the chambers were fine coming and going) and a ecg,which showed that her heart was beating okay a few times and then it went like a line with a little quiver and then back to beating again, but some of the beats didnt have the little small point before the big point when the heart beats was being missed off, although some did and that was normal, she has said that it has to be someting right in the centre of the heart, that must be the problem, so she has been prescribed digoxin(250 mg) she has half in the morning and half on a night, she was checked 4 weeks later and i was told it still wasnt right, but she had not had any of those turns i mentione earlier, and so had another ecg and that was checked again by the vet, who said that it was just a little bit better but still not right, so she is still on the same medication for another 4 weeks, and then she said if its still not beating right that she wants to do another ecg on her, but surely it should have been all sorted out by now, as each ecg is costing £67, every time, and i said that it should have been sorted out by now and i was not willing to be paying every month(which is what she wants to do)for an ecg every month, and ir made me think that will it ever be sorted out or what, (i know earlier on she said that it was quite rare) and that if i wasnt prepaired to have a ecg done her every 4 weeks,she may consider taking her off the medication, which had me thinking, but they are stopping her having any more funny turns, so why would she want to do this, it sounded like blackmail to me, in other words she wont keep her on the medication if i wasnt having an ecg done every 4 weeks, but dont you think that it all should have been sorted by now, or is she just trying to make money out of me, by charging £67 every 4 weeks, but id liked to ask if any other dog owners have any of the same symptoms with their dogs and did your vet get to the bottom of it in the end, i would gratly appreciate it if someone out their can help me with this-thank you.
-- Contributed by: susan> See All Comments on this article
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