It is more than possible to have a quite extreme enlargement of the heart, yet have no symptoms. When the problem is one that cause arrhythmias very often the first sign is sudden death caused by an acute arrhythmia. The other problem is with heart failure, but a dog or person can have CCF with marked X-ray changes, yet feel and act relatively well. Then they will tip over into ACF and you are in a life threatening situation.

You can make a fair guess about heart size by palpation in a human and in a big lean dog (though I'd guess you'd need some knowledge of the breed). But trying to assess size in a human baby or a young puppy won't work because of size differentials between the examiner and the examined.

Chocymolly, I am so sorry, what a horrible tragic thing to happen. :-(

I would be very suspicious of the vaccine too. 

So sorry, I hope you can find the answers.

Ditto, How upsetting for you all Choccymolly, so sorry to hear this.. and can imagine how much harder it is for you when you feel all your questions have not been answered.

I think its a hard one to call (not least by the lay man) there are many variables, and just for example in Cardiomyopathy, stage 1 would show no clinical signs... Really the vets would have to have picked up on abnormal heart rythmns, variable femoral pulse, pulse deficits and the like.
Sometimes the heart appears to be enlarged when it actually isn't. This happens when there is a tumor attached to the base of the heart or when there is blood or fluid accumulation in the pericardium, the sac that
contains the heart in the chest.
Congestive Heart failure's signs and sypmtoms would again be the irregular Pulse,grey tinge to gums (cyanosis) with lack of oxygen,fluid accumulation to cavity areas of lung,chest abdomen (looks pear shaped) soft cough especially at rest,respiratory difficulties....

But without a Post mortem.......It would, I'd imagine, be hard to attribute the Vaccine.
Good Luck, its only natural to want to strive for answers when something like this happens. xx

Hi Everyone,

I can't believe the response to my post

Thank you all for your views and sympathy, it is much appreciated, I'll read through it all later when I'm done for the day, first impressions are that the KC will cover the costs for everything under the 6wk insurance, the buyers are being extremely kind and understanding about the whole thing and lay no blame with me.

Maybe Dottie did have an underlying heart defect, but I would have thought that at some stage we would have seen signs or the Vets may have detected something, last Monday her gums were fine and pulse was normal, they couldn't listen to the heart too well as it was v.hot and Dotties was panting, as were mine when they went for 1st jab, maybe the vet should have delayed giving the vaccine until they had assessed more thoroughly

HINDSIGHT is a wonderful thing :(

chcoymolly

Thats good about insurance C/M, get back to us when you`ve finished work & had a read thru :)

It must have been a horrible shock for you.  I am glad for you that the owners are not blaming you, which might be an understandable kneejerk reaction considering how young the pup was but would, nevertheless, been totally unjustified.  How could you know that the pup had a problem if the vets didn't?  Medical science is wonderful but not infallible, there is still so much to learn and every individual dog (and human) is different.

Oh no, this is heartbreaking to hear.  Our 3 year old GR died after a severe reaction to his booster in March.

We now have another puppy who is 11 1/2 weeks old and he is due for his first vaccine on Saturday.   We were choosing to have one vaccine only then titre test 10 days afterwards, we are not having the lepto and may or maynot do nosodes for that.  We are giving him Thuja from tomorrow and for 5 days afterwards, to help prevent any adverse reaction.

However, hearing something like this has made me really panic again!

Maria