# Low BPM / heart rate?



## Ljilly28 (Jan 22, 2008)

My senior dog Tally is my true love dog. I get easily scared if anything is wrong with him. Today, I took him to the vet bc he has an odd pink growth in his mouth. They decided though to do bloodowrk first before the mouth bc he had 60 BPM to his heart when usually his rate is faster. Would you worry? He takes no meds except Rimadyl if sore.


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## hotel4dogs (Sep 29, 2008)

Not at all. I think of a slow heart rate as a healthy heart, I'd be worried if it were fast! FWIW, Titos is never as fast as 60 BPM and he'll be 10 in March. Maybe Tally was just more relaxed than usual. 
Also, was it done by a tech listening and looking at a watch? The error margin of that is about 25%!


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## Ljilly28 (Jan 22, 2008)

Thank goodness!!! A new vet did it, and she was very concerned. She felt his heart rate should be 75 on the low end. She sent out full blood panel. She aspirated the pink growth ( between a quarter and sillver dollar size with a tiy absess on the top) and found no cancer cells last month. However it hasnt gotten better( or worse), so she wants to biopsy it.


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## hotel4dogs (Sep 29, 2008)

I think there's a thread on here about low heart rates, in which several of us mentioned that our dogs have them and they're all healthy, athletic dogs. When Tito had his heart clearance done the cardiologist made me take him out and trot him around for 5 minutes to get it up high enough for him to even listen to it!
BTW, 60 is the low end of normal for medium to large dogs.
The reason I asked about how it was taken is that if it was the usual count for 15 seconds and multiply by 4 it's very easy for them to be off by 4, 8, or 12 beats.
But I sure understand and share your feelings, I know Tally and Tito are close in age.


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## hotel4dogs (Sep 29, 2008)

Is the pink growth a gingival hyperplasia? They're pretty common.


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## Siandvm (Jun 22, 2016)

In and of itself I would not be terribly concerned about a HR of 60 in a golden retriever-sized dog who otherwise seemed healthy. However, you say that your vet's records indicate that the HR is usually faster, and the change does concern me. It is, as someone else mentioned, important to know over what period of time this HR was taken (10s and multiplied by 6?, 15s and multiplied by 4? A full minute?). Obviously the less time they listen and the more they have to multiply to get a BPM reading, the greater the margin of error. If the HR has indeed changed, that warrants investigation. 
It is not the case that a slow heart rate is not a cause for concern. Yes, healthy dogs who are cardiovascularly fit will have a slower heart rate, but you can have a bradyarrhythmia, which is an abnormally slowly heart rate. It could be due to a heart block (the electrical signal is not traveling through the heart appropriately) or other causes. However, as I said, it could be perfectly normal. 
Perhaps you could monitor heart rate at home and report back to the vet? The femoral artery is very easy to feel on the inside of the rear leg up high near the groin. Feel for a ropy thing under the skin and don't press too hard or you won't feel the pulse. 
Hope that helps.


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