I have an 18 month old bluetick, who is turning into a world beater of a coondog. Today I was at the vets giving him a look over so I could get him clearance to take him across the border from Canada into the states, and the vet picked up a bit of a heart murmur. Does anyone else's dogs have/had this problem? Will it affect his hunting, or ability to keep up in the woods? How serious is this problem? This fella is fit to be the best dog I've owned, I hope he'll still have a future in the bush.

Thanks
Keith

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Did the vet diagnose the cause of the murmur and the the severity of what is causing it?

Did the vet say if it was a congenital murmur or an acquired murmur?

Did he give a "grade" of the murmur? “soft,” “moderately,” or “loud” - Grade 3 murmur, Grade 4 murmur , and etc?????

Murmurs are an individual thing.....It affact each dog differently based on the severity.

If the dog has a high grade murmur, then hunting the dog may be to stressful on the dog's heart.

Heart murmurs can be serious based on the condition of the murmur. Majority of dogs that have acquired murmurs have developing heart or valve disease. Eventually for some, the heart worsens.

But since each dogs is different, it comes down to the individual dog's murmur grade.

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The vet was pretty vague, but asked me to bring hum back as soon as I can, to look into it farther. He said it was "slight", he also said he never noticed it before on any other visits. He said not to worry too much about it till we find out more. It concerns me though, cause any problem with the heart can't be good.

Thanks for the reply buckshot
Keith

Well had a bunch of tests done on my blue dog, now I've been referred to a cardiologist, yesterday he went off his feed, I even cooked up a bunch of ground horse meat, and gravy and he win even eat that, the murmur has also gotten worse over the last 3 days, the vet told me the first day he noticed it he graded as a 1 today he gave it a 3. He is thinking that it may be endocarditis, I think I may be in for a long expensive journey. I forgot to ask if he diagnosed it as Congenital or acquired, I'm hoping it's aquired, because I just finished reading the fine print on my pet insurance policy, and they do not cover congenital diseases." GREAT "

Keith