Signs Your Dog May Have an Enlarged Heart
An enlarged canine heart condition is referred to by dog-tors as dilated cardiomyopathy, which is also called DCM. With this condition, the heart muscle becomes weaker, thinner, and cant function like a normal heart, allowing the muscle to swell and struggle to contract and pump blood like it normally would.
This condition is fairly common in older dogs, and especially in large dog breeds. Deerhounds, Great Danes, Dobermans, Saint Bernards, and Shepherds are a few of the breeds who are best known for this disease. With this condition, a pups heart becomes enlarged and weak, and the chambers of his heart are put under great stress and strain, making it difficult for your pup to function.
This will typically manifest in several signs you should look out for. While your dog cant verbally tell you whats wrong, odds are, hes trying to tell you in some other way. If your dog is having a hard time exercising and is fatigued far easier than normal, this could reflect his hearts difficulty to keep up. If hes reluctant to partake in activity, has to cough a lot, cant stop panting, breathes heavy all the time, is losing a lot of weight, and appears much weaker than usual, these are all signs he may be suffering from an enlarged heart.
Your dog may be giving you various body language cues to let you know something is wrong, so its important you keep an eye out for these symptoms – it may save your pups life:
Some other signs your dog may be giving you, especially in conjunction with the above body language, can reflect heart issues your dog may be having:
The Causes of Canine Enlarged Hearts
Historically, enlarged hearts in pups typically go hand-in-hand with conditions like congenital heart diseases, congestive heart failure, and heart disease. Knowing the possible causes of these diseases and this condition can help you keep an eye on your pups heart health.
Some of the causes of an enlarged heart include things that come with time, like old age and injury. Many middle-aged dogs, especially if theyre a larger breed, develop this over time.
Diet and exercise can play a role in a dogs heart health, too. Sometimes though, injury or infection can exacerbate an issue and cause heart problems. Often though, your dog might have just been born with a heart defect that you were unable to detect. Additionally, deficiencies in amino acids, toxicity, infection, and low thyroid can contribute as well.
Often, understanding how and why a disease or condition occurs can help lend itself to the treatment of the condition. That being said, its important to understand the science behind a canines enlarged heart. This condition is called Dilated Cardiomyopathy and occurs for a variety of reasons we mentioned above (genetic, diet, exercise, deficiencies, toxicity, etc).
When a dog has DCM, the heart muscle expands and becomes enlarged, and at its worst, weak and unable to function. The loss of the ability to contract is the main component of the condition, affecting both sides of the heart. Because of this, the chambers of the heart, the atria and the ventricles, are put under great strain due to the enlargement and impairment of the over-sized heart muscle.
How is an enlarged heart diagnosed in dogs?
While a routine physical examination can suggest to your vet that your pup may have an enlarged heart, a final diagnosis will require further testing to determine if any of the above symptoms are a result of dilated cardiomyopathy.
A chest X-ray of your dog may reveal abnormalities in their heart and lungs such as an unnaturally large heart or the presence of fluid in the lungs. Both of these are strong indicators of dilated cardiomyopathy.
This test monitors the electric impulses which cause your dog’s heart to beat. An irregular heartbeat (arrhythmia) or an abnormally fast heartbeat (ventricular tachycardia) can both be detected using this method.
This diagnostic test uses ultrasound to monitor the movements and shape of your dog’s heart in real-time. This test allows your vet to check your dog’s heart for tinned muscle walls and the efficacy of their heart’s contractions. This is the definitive test to determine whether your canine companion is suffering from an enlarged heart.
Congestive Heart Failure & Enlarged Heart in Dogs
Our dogs’ hearts may become enlarged for several different reasons, but it usually indicates that there is a problem with the heart. Many common causes of an enlarged heart cannot be cured, but there is effective treatment available to support the heart and keep dogs’ quality of life as good as possible.