# SAS - Heart Clearance Question



## hotel4dogs (Sep 29, 2008)

Thanks for sharing your experience with us, that's very interesting. I do think there are quite a lot of dogs with *low grade* murmurs who are quite normal. But the other way around, no murmur and having SAS, in interesting and concerning. Hopefully someone else will post here who knows something about it, as I don't!


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## Sally's Mom (Sep 20, 2010)

I have a dog with a physiologic heart murmur, echo confirmed no SAS. I can understand this because my husband has one that we can hear with a stethoscope after exercise and when he is lying down. If a dog with SAS does not have a murmur, I would think that it would be considered very mild and not life threatening.


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## hotel4dogs (Sep 29, 2008)

while I don't disagree, the concern would be breeding because a dog with very mild SAS can still produce severely affected puppies.

Just sort of thinking out loud here.
From the OFFA website, of the roughly 24,000 Goldens evaluated for cardiac clearances, 99.1% were normal, .6% were equivocal, and .3% were affected.
So the incidence of heart problems in goldens is actually pretty low (they rank #55 on the list, well below mixed breeds, which ranks #42). 

If only a very very low percentage of affected dogs do NOT have a murmur, you'd be testing a whole lot of dogs with echocardiograms to come up with just a tiny fraction of a percentage of affected dogs. 

Make sense? It does to me. 





Sally's Mom said:


> If a dog with SAS does not have a murmur, I would think that it would be considered very mild and not life threatening.


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## Leslie B (Mar 17, 2011)

I did not even think to look at OFA numbers. Guess I was still in shock over the murmur. So I went to ofa and did a little looking at other numbers. Elbow and hip dysplasia are at 11% for elbows and 13.3% for hips. With only .3% for SAS it seems very low numbers of dogs are actually affected. Now if it is your dog with SAS it is 100% so I want to do everything we can to produce healthy pups but there also has to be a balance. 

The cardiologist was big on the echo and it felt to me that she wanted every dog to skip the exam and go right to the echocardiogram. With the GRCA requiring heart clearances to be done by a specialist I suspect that we are going to slide right into the next step of every dog "needing" the echo.


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## Sally's Mom (Sep 20, 2010)

Not condoning breeding a dog with mild SAS. But if no murmur, no suspicion...no echo... And the OFA statistics are skewed as in all likelihood, most owners with SAS confirmed do not send in their forms. CERF is different as the forms get sent in regardless of whether or not owners send them in....


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## K9-Design (Jan 18, 2009)

hotel4dogs said:


> Just sort of thinking out loud here.
> From the OFFA website, of the roughly 24,000 Goldens evaluated for cardiac clearances, 99.1% were normal, .6% were equivocal, and .3% were affected.
> So the incidence of heart problems in goldens is actually pretty low (they rank #55 on the list, well below mixed breeds, which ranks #42).


Yeah but Barb, OFA is not the place to go for looking for breed-wide SAS stats. Why? Because OFA doesn't grade the exam. The owner already knows if the dog has passed or not when they leave the cardiologist, NOT when they get an envelope in the mail from OFA. So why would they bother sending in abnormal results to OFA? I am all about OFA statistics but what the stats above are telling you is that 99.1% of the cardiac forms submitted to OFA are clear. 

I had the same rigamarole go on when Fisher got his heart clearance, they heard a slight physiologic murmur so had to spend my money and do an echo. Heart was fine. Dog is now 10 years old, a master hunter and the most heat and exercise tolerant dog I've ever owned. I think his ticker's okay.....


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## Ljilly28 (Jan 22, 2008)

There seems like a good chance your dog will be just fine, and the murmur won't amount to much. I am interested in what things cause murmurs beyond SAS, and especially insignificant causes. 

Several years ago I purchased a pup, and at his wellness exam a grade 4/5 heart murmur was revealed. It sounded like a waterfall in his chest. I did return the puppy to his breeder, but it was a real education to listen to that heart alternating with Tally's healthy sounds. 

The only other experience other than strictly normal hearts was a pup with a murmur that completely disappeared at 16 weeks that the cardiologist called an "innocent murmur".

I have heard what a murmur heard but found to be of no significance called an "athletic murmur "- not sure if that is a real term, or just common parlance, but it seems many have tiny murmurs that are not SAS related.


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## sterregold (Dec 9, 2009)

It is a term that the cardio we use for our clinic, Aaron Wey, uses. Those innocent murmurs are often present in the fittest and most athletic dogs because their hearts pump so strongly it actually creates the whoosh sound that the cardio picks up on auscultation. People can have them as well.

As for dogs having SAS but not having a discernible murmur, I cannot say I have ever come across it personally, although Aaron did relate that he thinks the heart clearance should not be a one-time thing in our breed, as a dog with a mild case can show no signs while young and strong, but it can become evident over time as the dog ages and the heart weakens. So he would like to see at least auscultation done on Goldens at 1, 4, and 7 years if breeders are not going to routinely do Dopplers.


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## Tahnee GR (Aug 26, 2006)

I try to do at least two cardio checks on my dogs, and have been very grateful I did. One girl was diagnosed with a murmur after she had her litter, but I actually had 3 clearances from 3 different cardiologists (one just a couple of months before she was bred). It was a "pregnancy" murmur, not at all uncommon, and within a few weeks had disappeared.

Admittedly, this was accidental on my part, at least orginally! Going to a clinic, I would grab the ones who had not had a clearance and somehow she got mixed in with that bunch two other times :0

I do remember reading on, I think, the Work Gold list, that autopsies of some dogs diagnosed with SAS showed that they did not have it, and that autopsies of other dogs with a cardiac clearance actually showed SAS. Hopefully both of these are rare occurences.


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## sterregold (Dec 9, 2009)

Yes, and the cardio we used before Aaron, Joel Edwards, did say the only definitive way to diagnose SAS was on autopsy.


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## Swampcollie (Sep 6, 2007)

Whether we like it or not, the prescribed OFA heart exam is subjective in nature and opinions will vary from veterinarian to veterinarian. I've had a dog cleared by a cardiologist one week at a club clinic only to have a regular veterinarian detect a very noticeable murmur the next week. (Loud enough that I can hear it and I'm not a Vet.) 

Needless to say I don't put a whole lot of faith in the "Cardiologist" part of the heart exam. It's far more important to have the exam performed by Veterinarian who can actually HEAR what is going on in there Cardiologist or not, and have confidence in the outcome.


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## sterregold (Dec 9, 2009)

The auscultation is subjective indeed--that is one of the reasons we bring a cardio we trust, whose exams seem consistent and reliable, from 5+ hours away to do our clinic, when OVC is right down the road and has a cardiologist on staff--but one who tends to "find" things in Goldens that no one else can hear or find via Doppler...


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## Willow'sMom (Jul 26, 2014)

My 18 month old golden was diagnosed with SAS and they said it was at" 2.3". As it turns out this breeding was repeated three times. Most of the pups were sold as pets and not followed. But one pup in the last littler had a murmer noted on his health certificate and was sold that way. Vet said return the pup but the people were in love with him and will accept he will have a short life. The breeder(with extreame reluctance) refunded half of the price. Though the parents were cleared for heart it turns out the male has a sister with SAS, My girl is from the middle litter. I was planning on breeding but I just had her spayed because of her diagnosis. I have three questions regarding this, I hope experienced people can shed some light. First and most important to me is what limitations should she have in field work? Shes a fantastic retriever, learns so fast and wants to work.Am I running the risk of killing her letting her train for her W/C? Second-Since she came to me as a breeding quality dog and I paid $3500 because she was 13months old, represented as having all her preliminary clearances with excellent hips. Should the breeder be responsible for the spay($500) or the cardiogram($525)?or a refund to the price of a pet I would expect to spay on my own anyway? and lastly what about the stud dog and his sister having SAS. Shouldn't that have been revealed? This is a big well known kennel and the stud dog is still being bred. I just don't know where I stand here. I treasure this dog I have and I dont want to harm her. Who out there has hunted a dog like this, with this diagnosis and what does the future hold for us?


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## Swampcollie (Sep 6, 2007)

As usual, what does the purchase agreement say? 

The grading of a murmur is subjective in nature. While a rating of 2 should eliminate her as a breeding candidate, it may not end her working career. What did the Vet say about continuing to work her?


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## Leslie B (Mar 17, 2011)

Final cardio clearance should/could be done at 12 months. When purchasing breeding quality dogs for a premium price it pays to do your home work and not just believe the seller. At 13 months she should have had the three dna tests, a valid cerf, the final cardio, the prelim hips and elbows. I also would have expected a recent vet exam and their certificate of health. Just having the prelim on the hips is not enough.

As far as your financial rights, swampcollie said it above. The contract determines your choice of remedies and the warrenty provided by the seller. It does not sound like you have contacted them yet. For me, that call would have been the first call I made when i got home from the cardio. Why have you not called them?

I am less concerned about the stud dog and his sibling with sas. The standard requires the dogs being bred are cleared but does not have any clause for aunts, uncle's, or cousins that are diagnosed with sas. Just to be clear many puppies have heart murmurs and most out grow them. Dogs can live long and healthy lives with a mumur. While a murmur is a symptom that the dog may have sas it is not a diagnosis of sas.


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## Willow'sMom (Jul 26, 2014)

*Thanks for the feedback.*

Breeder first said they would pay for the spay and then backed out, there was no contract causing them to have to have any responsibility. BIG,BIG learning experience. The breed needs a special directory of breeders that really care for what they bring into the world. Something so unique that it's based purely on honesty. Maybe that's a pipedream since so much money is involved. I bought this great girl 7 days after our beloved golden died at 7yrs10months of hemangiosarcoma,....after thousands spent on emergency surgery he died on his morning walk 69 days later, happy and prancing to the end. Daddy was reaching in his pocket to give him a cookie for returning after chasing an armadillo and with happy eyes he just dropped on the sidewalk, dead.. I don't regret giving it a try but I'm sure we wouldn't make that choice again. The extra 69 days were a blessing, he didn't suffer, angels called him and he went over the bridge. So having this heart issue come into our lives like this has been a significant emotional (not to mention financial) blow. Thank you for letting me vent....maybe others will learn the questions to ask. Life is quite a journey isn't it.


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## Kmullen (Feb 17, 2010)

I am very sorry this happening to you, Willow's mom. That is not a responsible or reputable breeder.


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## Swampcollie (Sep 6, 2007)

Heart murmurs appear and disappear as puppies grow. It is indeed possible for a pup to pass a heart exam earlier in life and show a murmur later or even years later. Don't assume the Breeder lied to you, it's very possible they didn't. 

If you're purchasing the dog with a specific purpose in mind such as a "brood bitch" you should have obtained a written agreement outlining expectations and responsibilities of both parties. You didn't do that so you're only dealing with what the state and local laws require. Most states lemon laws look at health issues from the perspective of how they impact a dogs ability to function as a *Pet*. They don't address fitness for specific purpose such as Show Prospect, Agility dog, Hunting dog, Brood bitch, Stud dog etc. A grade 2 murmur more than likely isn't going to impede the dogs ability to function as a Pet. 

Well, this is going to sound harsh but under the circumstances from a legal perspective, the Breeder doesn't "owe" you anything. Knowing this, be careful how you approach the subject with the breeder. If they're sympathetic to your position they may elect to try and help you out. If you come out snarling and snapping like a mad grizzly bear, they'll probably tell you to pound sand and slam the door in your face.


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