My cavalier is 7 years old. When he was 4 our local vet diagnosed a heart murmur. Some tablets were presribed that made him sleepy and slow. We visited another vet who advised us to discontinue treatment as he regarded such tablets as preamture. All his life he has been a very energetic dog and at least twice a week will come with us off the lead on 3 to 5 mile walks.

Our local vet has agian detected the murmur and indicated that on a scale of 1 to 5 of inceasing seriousness of heart defect and murmur he is at 4.

He is very fit and of the correct weight to within less than .25 kilos.

I am looking for any advice to ensure te dog has a good quality of life going forward. I would also like more specialist vetinary advice and do not know where to seek it.

If you have any ideas and or expereience in these isues I would love to hear from you

Kind regrds

Bill Gore

Once had a GSD diagnosed to have a bad heart murmur at 5 years, I decided not to medicate and let her enjoy what was left of her life. She lived to 15 years and jumping about to the last. Ja:)kie

Join this forum for loads of good sound advice from experienced cavalier owners
http://www.ckcsforums.com/index.php?s=
Or try here http://www.cavaliers.co.uk/

I had a Boxer diagnosed with a heart murmur as a pup and our vet referred us to Dick Vet School in Edinburgh. We were lucky in that we saw Dr Dark who is very highly regarded in the field of cardiology. He couldn't do anything to make Klan well only an operation costing over £1000 might have helped and that wasn't available here at the time 1982 but he had a happy life without medication for a few years tho' we had to watch he didn't over exert himself. We had his litter brother who had a slight problem but he was fine and died of torsion at 12 years having done agility and lived a normal life.
Once Klan was on medication just to sit in the kennel I said enough and had him pts. If I could have brought him into the house it would have been different but he couldn't cope with the heat. I felt that he had no quality of life left.
Ask for a referal to a specialist where you will get an up to date opinion. Hope things go well
Anne