Happy hearts, happy hounds
It doesn’t bear thinking about too much and most of us take it for granted every day: your life pump.
Even without our help, the heart is an amazing thing. Heart bypass and open heart surgery seem to be everyday events nowadays. We all know someone who has had some type of heart or artery surgery.
Unfortunately for my patients this is not yet available but we can do a lot to help.
Columbus is one of my favourite patients. He is an 8-year-old slow moving cavalier king charles spaniel owned by a very caring couple, Donna and Mark, and usually accompanied by his house mate Suzie who is a 6-year-old female version.
Columbus has had his fair share of problems over the years including repeated ear infections, anal gland impactions, and the usual dental disease.
All smelly problems but Columbus is normally still a bright happy little guy that hasn’t a bad bone in his body.
But lately he had been slowing down and had developed a dry hacking cough, particularly at night and in the mornings.
We have been inundated with cases of kennel cough lately but Columbus’ cough didn’t have the same character and had been going on for almost a month.
A full examination revealed no obvious problems until I had a listen with the stethoscope.
Columbus had a washing machine in his chest.
The normal ‘‘lub dub’’ of a heart beating is actually the two main valves flopping closed.
The heart is a simple pump with two chambers either side. The blood returning to the heart via veins fills up the top chamber and then the bottom chamber which are separated by a oneway valve-type structure.
Once the bottom chamber is full, the valve separating the two closes and the bottom chamber contracts and ejects blood out another exit artery.
When this bottom chamber contracts, the blood cannot normally go back the way it came, up in to the top chamber through the separating valve because this valve opens only one way (entry) and is sealed shut.
But in some breeds, and in particular the trusty cavalier, this one-way valve on the left side becomes a bit gnarly and doesn’t close properly. This lets blood go back up into the top chamber (from where it came which isn’t a good thing) when the bottom chamber contracts.
So what does this all mean? With the blood flowing backwards it becomes turbulent and causes everything to vibrate, which causes an audible sound called a heart murmur.
Instead of a lub-dub you get a woosh-woosh. Hence the washing machine sound.
The top chamber becomes ‘‘pressurised’’ and several things happen as a result.
Increased pressure in the veins and then fluid is forced back out of the veins and into the tissues causing fluid accumulation in the lungs (congestion and coughing) and in the abdomen (swollen, fluidfilled abdomen).
Increased pressure makes the top chamber enlarge (enlarged heart) and push on the bronchi and airways, causing irritation and coughing.
So poor old Columbus’ pump had developed a leaky valve. This is a genetic problem in this breed and we used to screen all the breeding dogs in the UK for any signs of it.
Fortunately the gene pool here seems to be different and the prevalence is much less.
Some dogs have a very slow progression of the valve deterioration (years) and others become progressively unwell rapidly (months).
But the good news is that, like people, there are some very effective medications to help these little guys and Columbus was straight on to his regime that day.
Unfortunately no heart valve replacement though.
Within two days, Columbus is much better although urinating a lot on his diuretic medicine – in and out all night with the ranch slider getting a fair bit of use as Donna and Mark take turns to get up and let him out.
We all hope that his illness will be the slow type and he will be in to see us every week for a while and then every three months for check ups.
There are lots of different types of heart disease in fourlegged furry friends, and cats are very different to dogs in the types that they get.
They tend to get a heart muscle thickening disease more often which eventually limits the chamber size and ability of the heart to contract effectively. But that’s another story.
Have a great week and push play for 20 minutes a day.