The Tragedy of Canine Patent Ductus Arteriosis

With today's standard of veterinary medicine, when you bring a puppy into your home and into your heart, you expect your precious companion to live a healthy, happy life for many years. Nowadays, even in cases where a puppy is born with a congenital heart defect, most often it can be repaired and the dog can live a normal life.
But what if, for some reason, the defect goes undetected?
The second most common congenital heart defect of dogs is a condition called PDA, short for patent ductus arteriosis -- a condition that in most cases can be treated. Approximately seven out of 1000 live birth puppies are born with PDA.
Most dogs can go on to live a perfectly normal life if the PDA is diagnosed early. Treatment requires a relatively simple surgical procedure. In most puppies, the two main arteries of the body, the aorta and the pulmonary artery are connected by a blood vessel called the ductus arteriosis, which closes shortly after birth. If the ductus arteriosis remains open, or patent (which is a medical term for "open") an abnormal communication between the aorta and the pulmonary artery causes an unusually large volume of blood to pass into the lungs, which leads to over expansion of the heart and possible lung damage -- and eventually death, if left untreated.
Luckily, most cases of this potentially fatal defect is picked up during a puppy's routine exam when it gets its shots. But, as one heart-broken couple will attest, the heart condition is not always diagnosed properly, and the results can be fatal.
Rene and Jacki were the once-happy owners of Icebreaker, a male pit-bull, who passed away January 7th, 2011, of PDA, which was somehow missed by their veterinarian. It is their hope that by telling their story, more dogs can be saved from an unnecessary and painful early death, and more dog owners can be spared the devastation they experienced after losing their beloved companion at such a young age.
"The first or second time we took our 10-month-old pit-bull, Icebreaker, to our DVM, "Dr. Joe," (the veterinarian's last name will remain anonymous) it was confirmed that he had a heart irregularity, possibly a murmur. The doctor even let me listen to the erratic heart rhythms. Nothing more was said. We were sent home believing Icebreaker would outgrow his problem," Rene explained.
"About three months later Ice began to show extreme signs of fatigue, labored breathing, and would cough, gag, and drool thick saliva. We took Icebreaker back to Dr. Joe, assuming it was heartworm.
"After spending an unusually long time listening to Icebreaker's heart, Dr. Joe administered some blood tests to check his organs for parasites, and dismissed Icebreaker's heart issues as simply a response to pain from his pancreas due to allergies from table scraps. He never recommended any basic tests to check Icebreaker's heart.
"I have read that most experienced vets will pick up on a possible heart defect, or evidence of PDA, with a stethoscope alone and immediately suggest further tests. If this had been done in the beginning, Ice would have been able to have surgery to repair his PDA. There is a ninety percent survival rate for dogs that have the surgery."
Grief-stricken and angry, Rene and Jacki confronted the veterinarian who was in charge of their pet's care.
"Why would an experienced vet not pick up on issuing a few common sense tests?" an anguished Rene wondered?
"We asked him if he had been on the ball would Ice still be alive? He hesitantly answered, '˜Maybe.'"
Still devastated , Rene recalls Icebreaker's last days.
"He spent the last three days struggling to breathe with an over-sized heart in his chest crushing his lungs. He had no appetite and gained only three pounds in three months.
"He suffered needlessly. I find it hard to believe that an experienced veterinarian would ignore such an obvious problem or dismiss it without further testing,. Our dog is gone. We will never see him again, and he suffered for no reason.
"We will not let his death be for nothing."
If you feel your pet suffered or died due to negligence by a veterinarian you can contact your state board of veterinary medicine. Also, before choosing a veterinarian for your pet, find out how they rate by going to www.vetratingz.com. Another site that tracks questionable veterinary practices is www.vetabuse.com. Or simply Google search the vet's name.
By Googling the veterinarian's name who treated Icebreaker, I found six reviews: three of the six reviews were negative -- two clients accused the vet of negligently causing the death of their pet, and four out of six of the reviews complained of the vet spending too much time trying to sell them a line of natural products and special juice supplements.