You may remember a week ago i was asking how long until you get a dog after a home check as my friend was getting a dog.
Well he's got the dog and they are starting to get used to having him around and the kids love him, he went to the vets today to be told that the dog has a hart murmum and that he needs to go to a specialist which will be £1500 and then the dog may still last a few years depending how serious it is.

The dog was sold as a healthy dog and had recently been neutered by the rspca's vets who should have picked up on it... they are now left with a dog that may not live very long, cannot get insurance and that is going to have very expensive medical bills.

I saw one other post on this but how many people have they done this too?

My friend works for a law firm and is going to try and get the money out of the RSPCA but not sure if that will actually happen

if i was you i would get a second opinion, my ckcs had a heart murmur and needed no specialist treatment, and you would not believe how common heart murmurs are, i myself have one and when this was found out i was trying to get into the army, i was told that half the people in the army have heart murmurs as it is not uncommon, completley different to dogs i know but i would get a second opinion as it may not be as bad as the vet is making out.
tanya

we had ahorse with a mumur,never had any treatment & lived into his late 20s on normal/hard work up until his later years

I would go for a second opinion.  Some vets are far too quick to suggest expensive treatment for things that either do not need treatment or are not even a fault.  There are some vets who have operated on Boxers because they have an undershot mouth without ever seeming to realise that Boxers are supposed to have undershot mouths and their are loads of other examples of some vets doing unnecessary work.  Young (and inexperienced) vets are particularly likely go for more aggressive treatment than older more experienced vets.

I would suggest that if the RSPCA's vet successfully operated on this dog then the murmur is unlikely to be too serious and that possibly the vet used by the RSPCA is the more experienced of the two vets.

Joan
Take the rough with the smooth

I Have a dog sitting next to me that has had a heart mumur for 17 years. get a secound opinion.

Thanks guys - ive just had an email from him he was told that on a heart murmur scale of 1-6 his dog is a 6...i've recommended our vets for a second opinion as i know they do thorough examinations and try everything possible to save an animal if they think its worth it... our dog was 15 and had to do an op and in the pre-op exam they even noticed that the dog was starting to have some minor liver problems and changed her to a safer anaesthetic and i would think if they notice things like that pre-op they would notice a heart murmur if its that bad??

If a heart murmur was the most serious you could get as well surely there would be some signs in the dog that something wasn't right?

we were told that our dog had a heart murmur a week after we lost another dog.We got a second opinion which was all clear and she lived for 15 1/2 years.

Last year a vet told a couple who have 2 of my dogs (now age 8 & 9) that they both had 'failry severe" heart murmurs - grad 4-5.  These were 2 none related dogs, both delevlopin murmurs at this age!  Took them both to my vet, who found no problem,, and referred to a specialist  who re-checked and foudn no problems!  Original vet re-examined and insisted Murmur was present!
bye
Gwen

update - the vet who is now saying the dog has a heart murmur is the same vet the rspca used for his neutering