A heart murmur is when you have a leaky vessel and the blood, instead of flowing in one direction throughout the heart, flows backwards slightly. This increased pressure on the part behind the blood flow causes the heart to enlarge. This is, in a nutshell, a heart murmur.

The most common heart disease in dogs is left-sided heart disease. This occurs when a specific valve in the heart becomes slightly leaky. Over time, this can lead to the right heart enlarging, which can result in congestive heart failure.

If there's no diagnosis after diagnostic imaging, it depends on which one. If there's nothing after the x-rays and we've tried other things and your animal is not getting better, we may recommend more advanced diagnostic imaging. If all of those things are done, then typically working closely with a specialist in a certain field is where we would go.

It can be very effective, especially if we have done other testing and we've not found much information out. It can really help us to either rule out certain things or just start looking down a different path.

X-rays can be very helpful in identifying what could be going on, because often our blood work and other lab testing may not be able to tell us as accurately as something like an x-ray or ultrasound.

In the chest, we look at heart size, check for any fluid in the lungs, or any masses that could be there. In the abdomen, we examine all the organs, ensuring nothing looks enlarged. We check for any masses, any signs of a foreign body. We would look at the spine and ensure there's no arthritis. And of course, if we were looking at joints, we'd ensure that we're not seeing any signs of a tear or fracture or damage or things like that.

Most of the time we may have you drop the dog off for a little bit just because it can take some time. Not really so much for the x-ray, but for it to get processed and then be read. But really, for the most part, we'll take your dog, we'll get the x-rays done. They usually only take a few minutes, and then the majority of the time is spent reading those images, and then they'll be able to go right back to you or back to their kennel.

Not necessarily. It really depends on what we're looking for. If it's something related to the heart, for example, we might jump straight to diagnostic imaging, but often we use blood work and x-rays together because they complement each other in diagnostics.

Definitely come to us or your local veterinarian for recommendations. Also, look at online reviews on Google. You want to ensure that they require the medical precautions we discussed, separate dogs by the right size, have video cameras for monitoring, and have an emergency plan. If something happens while they're there, they should have a veterinarian that's accessible if the dog gets hurt.

It's something to ask about because it is different for each pet. Typically, they'll get to spend about six to eight hours outside, usually with dogs of their same size. A lot of times, they'll get to play in water. They usually have some downtime during the day and then they would be by themselves overnight in their own kennel.