My dog just diagnosed with heart murmur.

My lurcher lived until she was 13 with a grade 4 heart murmur ..i never changed her exercise 1hr walk offlead 2 x daily ...

 

Our dogs can live very normal lives with heart murmurs.
I have a 5 month old puppy who was diagnosed at 7.5 weeks of age with a grade 3-4 murmur. It has not changed and remains at 3-4.
She has the same diet (raw) as our adults and the same exercise and strenuous fun.
She is not a heavyweight puppy. A fit little girl.
Our vet has no idea what her life expectancy will be, it could be 6 months or 2 years or maybe even a full normal life. He has suggested that he would not consider wasting our money with refferals etc, but just to give her a "normal" quality life with all of the others and that if we wanted to take her "beating / working", she could quiet easily be able to do this when old enough.
Some years ago we had an older girl who was diagnosed at about 9 to 10 years of age with a murmur, (a different vets practice) I do not remember what grade she had, she continued for another 4 years enjoying life with us all quiet normally and died with major heart failure at 14 years.
Her life was treated the same as the others and she was kept lean for her benefit.

A happy and active old lady. Dear "Fenn" RIP.

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One of my lurchers had a heart murmur diagnosed at age 6. I can't now remember what grade it was, but I was told by the vet (not the one I have now) that she could only be lead walked from then on. I went out of the surgery, looked at my dog, she looked at me, and I thought "a short life and a merry one". We carried on with plenty of off-lead exercise and lurchery fun.
She was 18 when I had her pts. Her heart was still beating strongly - it was the rest of her that was failing.

It's a decision only the owner can make. But if you were the dog, what would you like your life to be?

 

Yep one of my lovely lurchers missy was diagnosed with a heart murmur aged 8 months, she worked hard had a lovely litter of pups and last until she was 12 years old.

 

Roxy has a grade 5 heart murmur that she's had from birth due to a heart condition, but she's always acted like any other normal crazy Jack Russell full of energy and the specialist we saw said she didn't need limited exercise or anything...just watched for signs of getting too tired. She's doing well at 10.5 years old.