t to life-endangering seriousness.
When you take your puppy or kitten to your veterinarian for its first vaccinations, your veterinarian should listen to the pet’s heart. In a puppy with SAS, there will usually be a heart murmur over chest near the left base of its heart. When a puppy is not severely anemic from hookworms, SAS and/or a patent (=open) foramen ovale are probably the most common anatomical reasons for these pediatric murmurs. (read here) This murmur is how most cases of SAS are first diagnosed. When discovered later in life the complaint is likely to be tiring after mild to moderate exertion. Not every puppy with a heart murmur has SAS or anything that serious. Puppies often outgrow heart murmurs without veterinarians really knowing what caused them in the first place. Only complicated tests can tell which murmur is important and which is not ( benign or innocent heart murmurs ). But if your pet still has the murmur when it is ~6 months old, the problem need veterinary attention.
When a puppy has a significant degree of SAS passageway narrowing, its heart has to work harder to force the blood through the narrow area just below the aortic valve. With time, the heart muscles will get thicker due to this extra effort. As the heart walls thicken, the full heart holds less and less blood and needs more and more oxygen. Eventually, the heart can begin to fail. Unlike older dogs with congestive heart failure, puppies with seriously narrowing SAS often die suddenly when clots form in the heart muscle or the heart’s electrical system fails. Neither the parent of an SAS puppy (nor the puppy itself) should ever be bred again.
What Signs Of SAS Might I See In My Puppy?
Most often, you will see no signs at all in your puppy. But as time goes by and the puppy’s heart muscles thicken, problems in the electrical system of the heart might cause fainting or even unexpected sudden death.
What Tests Might My Veterinarian Perform?
To decide how serious a heart murmur really is, your pet needs to have an echocardiograpy (doppler ultrasound) performed by a veterinarian experienced in interpreting the results. An x-ray and an EKG will also be required to see how much damage has already occurred.
What Are The SAS Treatment Choices I Have?
The most popular drugs used to treat SAS are known as beta blockers (ß-blockers). The most commonly used ones are propranolol (Inderal®) and atenolol (Tenormin®). Beta blockers reduce heart rate, help control abnormal heart rhythm and reduce blood pressure. They are proven in their ability to extend the lives of dogs with SAS.
Open heart surgery to correct a SAS problem in dogs has not been as successful as one might hope. Dogs that have had the surgery, live about as long as dogs that just receive medicine.
This technique is similar to the balloon angioplasties that are done to dilate blocked coronary arteries in humans. A catheter is threaded into the dog’s heart and a balloon is expanded in the narrowed area of the heart. So far, to the best of my knowledge, this technique has not been shown to lead to a longer life.
How Long Will A Puppy With SAS Heart Problems Live?
This is very difficult to predict. They younger a puppy is when a change in its energy level is first noticed and the louder the heart murmur, the bleaker its outlook. Most dogs with typical signs of SAS do not live over 3 years – even with medication. A cardiac work-up at a regional veterinary center that includes all the diagnostic tests, might give you more insight; but all pets with this condition can die with little or no warning.
Kissing Bugs And Chagas Disease
There are a group of blood sucking bugs that feed on the blood of sleeping dogs. They are called kissing bugs . These true bugs are found in hot humid climates all over the world. Where I live in South Texas, the Chagas disease parasite is transferred to dogs through the bite of our local kissing bugs . In the poorer areas in my region, 19.6 – 31.6% of the dogs have been exposed. (read here) One of the primary signs of Chagas disease in dogs are cardiac arrhythmias an