Many people have dogs as pets. These are great watchmen, guards, friends and companions. But all living things are susceptible to various kinds of diseases, one of the most common is heart disease. In dogs, it is difficult to determine such an ailment, but it is quite possible. This article will introduce dog breeders with the skills of diagnosing heart disease in pets. But first, we suggest that you understand the question of which side the dog’s heart is on. The animal, like most representatives of the fauna, has an organ on the left side. But here it is not so simple, let's consider the issue in more detail.
Where is the dog's heart?
A dog heart protrudes into both thoracic (pleural) cavities, mostly from the third to sixth intercostal space of the left side. If you look at the chest of a dog standing straight, then most of the organ will be located between the triceps muscles almost in the middle.
To determine exactly which side of the dog’s heart, pay attention to the horizontal line running through the point of the shoulder joint. This line is located just above the valves of the heart muscle.
What is the normal heartbeat in a healthy dog?
Having determined which side of the dog’s heart is, we suggest moving on to the question of which heartbeat is considered normal for a healthy individual. The number of beats per minute depends on the size of the dog. In small breeds and puppies, the heart beats, as a rule, faster than in large and adult dogs. Measure the heartbeat when the dog is at rest for at least 20 minutes. The norm is the number of beats per minute from 50 to 130 (depending on the size of the dog and its age).
How to count your heart rate and check your heart rate
Knowing which side of the dog’s heart is, you can easily measure your heartbeat. Place your ear on your pet’s chest so that your heart is lower. Or put your palm on the left side of the dog’s chest, but not in front of the elbow, but behind it.
You can independently check the pulse, for this you need to slightly press on the artery, which is located on the inside of the thigh. It’s easy to find an artery, pay attention to the part of the thigh in the place where the leg goes into the body - the pulsation is visually determined, this is the artery.
In veterinary medicine, there are many industries in which we lag behind conventional medicine for people, and cardiology is one of them. It’s in the dog’s best interest to be able to identify dogs with heart disease symptoms. Diagnosis at an early stage of the disease will allow you to start treatment with medicines on time, improve the health of the pet and return its life to its usual course.
Basic information
Unlike people, most dogs will not suffer from heart ailments even if they eat improperly. But dogs are predisposed to the appearance of many defects that cause heart failure. This leads to stagnation in both circles of blood circulation, and it strongly affects the work of all organs.
For a long time can occur without symptoms of heart disease in dogs. As a rule, there will be no treatment, but even in this case, the pet, like a person, can live for many years.
Very attentive dog breeders can understand that something is wrong with the dog if it suddenly weakens, or she has shortness of breath, even after low physical exertion. In almost one hundred percent of cases of heart disease in dogs are acquired, resulting from past infectious diseases. Most often, older dogs suffer from heart disease.
Next, we propose to consider the main heart diseases in dogs.
Mitral valve or atrioventricular valve insufficiency
This is the most common heart disease in dogs. Females suffer less from such a disease than males. Diseases are practically not affected by rocks weighing more than 20 kilograms. Deficiency is common among the following breeds:
- Cavalier King;
- chihuahua;
- poodle;
- fox terrier;
- Charles Spaniel
- Schnauzer
As the name of the disease shows, one or more valves are affected. In 75% of cases, the disease is chronic. Heart valves play the role of tight folds between the heart chambers. Affected valves of the disease partially lose this ability and pass blood that can flow in the opposite direction. Such a backflow creates noise, and the veterinarian can recognize them by listening to the heart through a phonendoscope.
Mitral valve stenosis
Unlike the previous version, this disease affects not only males and dogs of small breeds, but almost all older dogs. With age, the mitral valve becomes stiffer. Due to the appearance of rudeness, he loses the ability to prevent the outflow of blood during contraction of the left ventricle.
DKMP - dilated cardiomyopathy
Breeds of medium-sized and large sizes are predisposed to DCMP disease, including:
- Cocker Spaniel;
- boxer;
- Dalmatian
- English bulldog;
- Irish Wolfhound;
- Great Dane
- saint bernard;
- Great Dane
- Doberman.
This is a disease of the heart muscle itself, in which it can not fully perform the function of a pump. Blood does not pump efficiently through the whole body, as heart contractions are weak. Over time, some areas of the heart increase, which further reduces the efficiency of blood pumping.
Other diseases
In this section, we write down what kind of heart disease in dogs is as often as described above, but we will not go into details in detail.
- Arrhythmias occur with a violation in the conductive cardiac system. In the thickness of the organ, nerve impulses cannot be evenly distributed, which leads to irregular contractions of the myocardium.
- Pericardial Disease Dropsy and inflammation of this cardiac serous “sac” occur. In this case, functional heart disease progressively develops.
Causes of heart disease
The vast majority of heart diseases in dogs are acquired due to age-related changes. But it happens that the disease occurs due to transferred infectious diseases and injuries. Not only elderly dogs, but also middle-aged animals are affected by heart disease.
Among the acquired diseases, the following most often appear:
- The heart muscle can weaken and increase in size, which leads to a heart attack.
- Chronic diseases of heart valves that cannot fully perform their work.
- Pericardial Disease
- Arrhythmia.
There is another cause of disease - congenital malformations, which are of various types. In any case, there is only one verdict: the heart cannot fully perform its function. Heart diseases make the dog weaker, susceptible to various diseases, shorten the duration and quality of life.
Symptomatology
We propose moving on to the question of how to determine a dog's heart disease. We have already figured out that there are two types of diseases - acquired and congenital. The latter are extremely rare among dogs and are diagnosed by noise through a phonendoscope. Noises can be recognized in puppies with greater clarity when they reach 4-6 months of age and at a time when the baby is very excited or active.
Congenital cardiomyopathy and mitral valve disease are the most common heart diseases in dogs. An organ with such ailments cannot function normally, which leads to a decrease in the life span. In most cases, dogs have been living with such diseases for years, and vices do not manifest in any way. How to understand that you need to urgently visit the veterinarian’s office?
There is a symptomatology that will give out heart muscle disease:
- A dry, sharp, even barking cough that becomes stronger at night.
- The dog cannot catch his breath (shortness of breath appears) even after a simple walk.
- Often, dogs with heart disease begin to progressively lose weight; an animal can lose a significant part of its mass within a couple of weeks.
- The dog is in a state of apathy, he is tired and lethargic.
- In severe cases of the disease, the dog can systematically lose consciousness.
- In case of severe stagnation in a large circle of blood circulation in the dog, the abdomen sharply swells.
Diagnostics
To diagnose a dog’s heart disease, it’s not enough to listen to a heartbeat through a phonendoscope. You will need to pass all urine and blood tests, do an ultrasound scan, do a chest x-ray, ECG. Among other things, it will be necessary to measure the speed of blood flow and determine the direction of flow, for this the dog is done Doppler echocardiography.
Therapy
There are difficulties in treating a dog’s heart disease. If the defect does not manifest itself, is insignificant, then nothing needs to be done. But in the case of a serious heart defect and its valves, an operation is ahead. This is the difficulty - there are practically no cardiac surgeons among the Aibolites, which is why most of the puppies with defects die, and few of them live up to 6 months of age.
The main treatment for heart disease in dogs today is medication. Veterinarians widely use ACE inhibitors of angiotensin-converting enzyme. These drugs minimize the load on the heart, improve myocardial nutrition. At the beginning of treatment of the heart with drugs, it is possible to slow down the development of pathology, but not to eliminate it. With the use of drugs, the dog is better, the symptoms are much easier.
Diuretic drugs can prevent blood stasis. Nitroglycerin, beta-blockers and digitalis drugs are used to improve the state of striated muscle muscles, as well as to slow down organ contractions.
Heart failure is a consequence of heart defects. We mentioned inhibitors above, they are often used to improve the quality of life of animals with heart failure. Heparin and similar drugs are used to prevent the development of blood clots with mitral valve insufficiency and cardiomyopathy. But you must use these drugs with extreme caution, as they can cause internal bleeding.
How to prevent the development of heart defects in dogs?
In the case of congenital diseases, nothing can be done. But if the dog is healthy, then it is possible and necessary to minimize the risk of developing such ailments. The first thing to observe is proper and balanced nutrition, in which there must be the necessary amount of trace elements, vitamins, proteins and fats. For older dogs, choose a diet that will have a minimal amount of protein and fat.
There are a lot of factors influencing the development of heart diseases, and it's impossible to keep track of everything. Therefore, pay more attention to the behavior and condition of the pet, visit the veterinarian at least once a year.
In this article, we talked about which side of the dog’s heart and which diseases can threaten it. The publication is for guidance only, and it is dangerous for your pet to carry out therapy without a veterinarian indicating!