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The NWCC publishes an informative newsletter, Whippet Wanderings, four times a year. Our newsletter contains regional reports, Specialty reports, coursing results, and informative articles and information of interest to whippet fanciers.

NWCC Rescue in action!

Read the latest NWCC Rescue story here; currently featured in the latest issue of Whippet Wanderings

You dont want to sleep on this!

The 2008 National Whippet Specialty in Hamilton, Ontario will be upon us once again, before we even know it!   Its never too early to plan ahead so keep an eye on your Whippet Wandering newsletter and the NWCC website for the latest announcements. Thanks again to all of those who helped make 2007 such a success!

For every quarterly issue we will post a few select articles from Whippet Wanderings. If you would like to read more, please support the club and become a NWCC member!

Summer 2008 Feature Article: What is meant by "athletic" heart murmurs?

By Dr Lisa Costello

These can also be known as "innocent" or "flow" murmurs.  The sound produced by an athletic murmur is the sound of blood flow going from the heart into the vessels or into the chambers....not backflow of blood, which happens in mitral valve disease.  This is common in athletic hearts they think due to size, volume of blood being moved by the heart and some other variables. These murmurs can grade 1, 2 and at times 3 (although very rarely a 3) and when you have an echo done, the heart is completely normal, valves close normally and nothing is wrong...you are just hearing blood flowing out of the heart.  This year I had two of my dogs turn up with athletic murmurs...one is Joel (4 yrs), who had a grade 2 murmur on auscultation (by the cardiologist, not by me) and his valves were tighter than any of my other dogs.  Dutch is the other dog and he will be 7 this year.  That is the age when I start to wonder if the murmur is changing from an innocent murmur to one that indicates a problem.  His echo's so far have been normal and he has had the murmur now for 2 years so we'll see what the future brings.  Wyatt (12 1/2yrs) has grade 2 and 3 murmurs on different sides of his chest, which he developed at age 10.  These are due to structural problems (his valves are not as tight as they used to be) so here are three dogs that may all sound the same on auscultation, yet they have differences in their heart function based on echo.

There was another question as to whether athletic or innocent murmurs remain "normal".  There is no answer to that question.  Your dog may have an athletic murmur for years and then it may develop mitral valve disease (where a dysfunctional valve is causing the noise now, no longer normal blood flow).  These two murmurs may be indistinguishable to the ear but an echocardiogram will tell you definitively what is going on. 

My ground rule for owners is that if your dog has a murmur, and you want to know what is truly going on, then you need to get an echo done.  If you have a flow or athletic murmur, you should monitor that dog for changes over time....an echo every two years if possible or even more frequently.  The million dollar question is whether dogs with athletic murmurs should be bred and how their hearts change over time.  That is what the Whippet Health Foundation cardiac study is hoping to find but it is going to take several more years of following these dogs as they age to provide answers.

If you are planning on breeding a dog OF ANY AGE, then I think that dog should have an echocardiogram done, period.  I don't care if they are 9 months old (but then, what are you thinking breeding a 9 month old??????) or 9 years old, they should have health clearances PRIOR to breeding (including but not limited to CERF, BAER, thyroid, echocardiogram.)

Stay tuned...

Our next Whippet Wandering feature will be another fantastic excerpt, not unlike the one at left!

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