Last week Monty came in for a health check. Monty is an eight-year-old male Pomeranian, fawn-coloured, extremely well-loved and well-kept. Monty looks only half its age, and as with most Pomeranians, stands very proudly and enjoys plenty of self-esteem.
Dogs do not often suffer acute heart attacks as we understand them in humans- Martin Debattista
Pomeranians originate in Germany and are descended from the German Spitz, which looks like a larger version of this toy-breed dog.
The name of this breed derives from the word Pomerania, a historical region on the south shore of the Baltic Sea stretching between eastern Germany and Poland, where it was originally bred. Pomeranians are popular in Malta, with some fine examples of this breed.
Monty has been a heart patient for the past two years. It was brought in late one evening heaving and gasping for breath. I found it was suffering from an acute case of congestive heart failure.
Dogs do not often suffer acute heart attacks as we understand them in humans. This is partly due to the fact that they do not develop the arterial changes that occur in the human heart.
There are also some vascular differences in the canine heart, which make it more difficult to have the classic heart attack caused by an interruption of the blood supply to any one part of the heart muscle.
What is common in dogs, and in particular with small and medium breeds such as Pomeranians, poodles and King Charles Spaniels, is a condition called congestive heart failure (CHF).
If you can imagine the heart to be made up of two pumps lying side by side, one on the left and the other on the right – stuck together and contracting simultaneously – you can get a clearer picture of how this organ works.
The job of the right pump is to circulate blood towards the lung, while that of the left is to pump blood to the rest of the body.
Each is made up of an upper blood-receiving chamber called the atrium, and a lower chamber called the ventricle, from which blood is pumped out of the heart. These upper and lower chambers are connected by one-way valves.
The top-left chamber receives blood from the lungs, blood goes down into the bottom-left chamber and is pumped towards the whole body. The top-right chamber receives blood from all over the body and pushes it back through the one-way valve into the bottom-right chamber, where it is sent back out to the lungs for oxygenation, thus completing the cycle. CHF happens when blood flow is impaired.
It is more of a symptom than a disease. With CHF, the heart is not pumping efficiently. Therefore, the patient experiences a reduction in circulation with a backlog of blood flow.
It is the left pump which is most commonly affected, and although there can be other reasons, it is usually the one-way valve on this side which is not doing its job well enough by allowing blood to flow back into the top-left chamber, causing a backlog of blood in the lungs when the bottom-left chamber contracts. This is known as left-sided CHF.
The common symptoms of left-sided CHF are, in fact, mainly due to this accumlation of extra blood in the lungs that causes liquid and catarrh to accumulate in the airways, which in turn causes coughing.
Typically, the dog would still be eating and exhibiting playfulness, as there is no infection or temperature present. Coughing usually occurs when the dog gets excited and results because air is trying to get to areas of the lung which are congested with liquid that your dog is trying to clear out.
Another situation typical of left-sided CHF usually occurs a few hours into the night when the dog is sleeping; this happens due to the slow and undisturbed accumulation of liquid in the airways.
In Monty’s case, so much liquid had accumulated in the lung that it had difficulty breathing. The dog was literally drowning in its own water and suffering from an acute attack of left-sided CHF. Although it is the most common, CHF is not the only heart condition dogs suffer from.
Other conditions are dilated cardiomyopathy, which is an enlarged, weak and irregular heart that occasionally occurs in larger breeds, as well as congenital heart defects of various types, which can occur in puppies.
Heart problems also occur in cats, though not as frequently. The main symptom to look out for is intolerance to exercise, such as if your cat breathes with its mouth wide open after what should normally be a regular run.
At a later stage, it could suffer listlessness and loss of condition. It would be up to your veterinarian to diagnose a heart condition, so such observations should not be ignored.
Luckily, there are many new and established drugs which are effective for Monty’s condition. Having been lucky enough to pull through on that evening, Monty is now leading a relatively normal life.
Successful treatment of heart conditions depends on cooperation between yourself and your vet, relying on your observations at home together with your vet’s findings and diagnosis.
This will contribute to diagnosing the best available treatment for your pet to be able to continue leading a comfortable life.
thisweekwiththevet@gmail.com
Dr Debattista is a veterinary surgeon.