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Irregular Heart Beat


Does your Greyhound have an irregular heart beat?  

72 members have voted

  1. 1. Does your Greyhound have an irregular heart beat?

    • Yes
      44
    • No
      23


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All three of mine have irregular heartbeats, as did our B. Kid, Emily. Just wondering how common this is in Greyhounds. My vet says it's a sinus arrhythmia, which means the heartbeat changes with respiration, and that it's benign.

Laurie

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Guest 2greys5cats

Both of mine too. Doctor said that as long as the beat was regular and strong when it was accelerated (from running, etc.), there was no problem. First time i noticed it I found it quite frightening. And I only half believed the doctors explanation. Then when I got the second dog and she had an irregular heartbeat I realized he must be right....

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Guest pleasantsarg

I didn't vote-- but I have had 1 grey with Atrial standstill ( a really slow heartbeat-- around 40bpm) who had to be corrected with a pacemaker. The other 3 have regular heart beats.

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My little girl Erika has an arythimia, discovered at her last check-up. The vet said it was mild, but could become worse as she ages. It doesn't seem to bother her at all. None of the others has this problem, although Tiger and Inga have their own medical issues.

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Hmmmm.

 

Well, it is my understanding that everyone and everything has an irregular heartbeat with respect to respiration. For example, for stress (I am a graduate student, stress is my middle name), I am doing biofeedback and one of the things they teach you is how to slow your heartbeat with respiration. When you breathe in, your heart beats faster than when you breathe out so the trick they taught me was to take quick breaths in and slooooooow breaths out, it calms me down and slows my heartrate within seconds. (during the sessions, they hook up a billions sensors and watch heartrate vs. breathing rate vs. perspiration vs. skin temperature vs. jaw tension.)

 

Both of my cats and my sweet girl's heartbeat is faster as she breathes in than it is as she breathes out also. I just assumed that it was because all living creatures were like that.

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Guest LynnM

At a rest, Joplin's is slow and usually something like bump................bump....bump............bump, but it gets nice and regular during a good workout, so I've always chalked it up to one of those adaptations that makes fast dogs fast. My old lady chow mix used to have a murmur (from starvation/heartworms/endocarditis) that was so bad you could feel it by putting your hand on her chest.

 

Lynn

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Guest Duds Mom

I am so glad to read all these responses on this topic- I noticed that sometimes when we walk, Dudley slows down a bit, and just sort of stalls, as opposed to his normal rapid clip- I felt his chest and his heartbeat was so irregular- scared the crap out of me- I'm still going to put in a call to the vet.But thanks for all the responses- I'm a little more at ease. :)

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  • 4 years later...

Sinus arrythmia is common is large dogs, it comes from a high vagal tone. Speeds up on inspiration, slows on expiration. No problem, as long as there is nothing else abnormal going on with the beats. Mine has it too.

 

ETA: there shouldn't be an extra swish like someone mentioned. A swish to me sounds like it could be a murmur, that's kind of what they sound like.

Edited by Brooker914
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Guest ArtysPeople
All three of mine have irregular heartbeats, as did our B. Kid, Emily. Just wondering how common this is in Greyhounds. My vet says it's a sinus arrhythmia, which means the heartbeat changes with respiration, and that it's benign.

 

Arty has exactly the same thing, and our vet also said it's benign and should have no impact on his health or life expectancy. She said that she was mentioning it to us just in case we noticed it on our own and worried.

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My Teddy has showed a slight heart murmur when EXTREMELY stressed so I did not vote. If I had voted it would be "sometimes"!

 

 

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Guest houndlover

Daisy has a murmur but neither one of the boys do. I was worried at first but the vet said that she wasn't concerned about it so I was okay with that.

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  • 1 year later...
Guest RooCroo

Sissy had it, Bloo has it, Hoover does not. No murmurs, just irregular beats. It's never caused anyone any problems that I know of. :)

Edited by RooCroo
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the first time i brought emily in for her checkup after adopting her my vet spent forever listening to her heart. he said she has an extra beat! the first time he has heard this and he has been in business for over 40 years and has other greys in his practice. go know, she is just fine.

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Mine both do. When we first got Dawn, I was really scared when I noticed that her heartbeat wasn't rhythmical like people's hearts. The vet said that this was because of their large chest cavity and musculature. He said that it wasn't anything to be worried about that it was common with greyhounds. I wasn't sure I believed him though.

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Guest eaglflyt

I noticed this in our girl, Ady Bea, right when we got her in our home. The vet said all was OK and that it was a sinus arrhythmia. I'm a bit relieved to see so many other's greys are the same.

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  • 3 years later...

I had a Dalmatian with irregular heartbeat. The vets at UGA Vet school did all kind of tests and said she was fine that it was OK in dogs and not a problem like it is in people. It never caused her any problems.

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