Red's 1st Echocardiogram

Took Red for his first screening echocardiogram today. Now that he is 2 years old, I want to screen him every year. I work with Dr. William Brown, a board certified cardiologist, every Thursday at my work, but I took him to his office today for the echo (too hard to do it at the cat clinic, lol).

In the waiting room. "oh what are we doing here?? This is fun!!"


10 minutes later... "I changed my mind. This is NOT fun."


Red did really well for his echo. Dr. Brown picked him up and put him on the table, and the techs held him. I reassured him, and he did try to get up once, but I reassured him again, then he was fine. The poor boy had the more terrified look on his face at first though, but he seemed to calm down after a couple minutes. Afterwards he was fine, and we did some obedience stuff for the techs who asked to see some tricks =)

RESULTS:

No VPCs or skipped beats on the ECG. Everything ok on the echo, EXCEPT his left ventricular diastolic dilation value... normal for dobes is anywhere between 4.3cm and 4.8cm. Red's was 5.0. The Dr did a few readings and still got this higher number. This increased value can be a sign of DCM. The number isn't horrible, but its still higher than he would like to see. Red's contractility was ok at 25%, though usually it's 30-40%. The Dr wasn't as concerned about this though because there can be normal variability as he was about the diastolic dilation. He said it could just be normal for Red, but he would like to check him in 6 months again, rather than a year. I'm also going to have him Holtered for sure.

I'm a little freaked out, but I'm not going to really stress until he have the next echo done in 6 months. Because I had Dr Brown echo my cat, Titus, who had a thickened ventricular septum which can be a sign of HCM, but we have re-echoed him several times, and it was determined that that is just normal for him. So maybe this is just normal for Red. I hope...

Afterwards, my sister met Red and I at an outdoor mall in the area. The was in the mid 60's today, so it was a beautiful day for walking. I bought Red a McDonald's cheeseburger for being a good boy at the vet.

"Can I haz cheezburger now?"


Later, I called Lori, Red's breeder, to let her know about his echo and to double check and see if any close relatives that she knew of had cardio. She said most of the problems on Trotyl's (Red's sire) side have been liver problems, and on Abby's (Red's dam) side, there hasn't been any cardio that she knows of, though there has been some cancer. Abby's dam died of pancreatic cancer, and her sire died of an intestinal obstruction. I've looked on dobequest to see what else the dogs in Red's pedigree have died from, but most of them don't have it listed. I wonder if there's any other way to look it up somewhere/somehow?

Anyway, I'm not going to worry about it. I'm going to think positive thoughts and not think anything negative. I'm a big believer in energy and self-fulfilling prophecy. We will recheck the echo in 6 months, and have the Holter done in the meantime. Red is going to live to a ripe old age =)