My puppy has a heart murmur. Is neutering safe with anesthesia?

Denzel is adorable! Since he has had 12 years of exposure to testosterone, neutering him at this point will not decrease his existing prostate enlargement. Anesthesia with a louder heart murmur can be slightly more high risk, but can still be performed in many cases after a cardiologist evaluation with an echocardiogram and cautious anesthetic monitoring. Consider discussing the risks vs. benefits of neutering Denzel at this point with your vet, but it is unlikely to change his prostate issue. I hope that all goes well!

Hi there and thank you for using pet coach to address your concern. Just because he has a heart murmur does not mean he cannot go under anesthesia. There are also other methods such as using a local anesthetic to numb the area and removing it while he is awake if the heart is that much of a concern. Special precautions are taken wi dogs that have a heart murmur and need anesthesia. I have placed many dogs with heart murmurs under anesthesia and have never had any complications. I've even done my fair share of patients in congestive heart failure under anesthesia and they have done well. I would discuss with you vet the other options to remove this besides anesthesia if you are uncomfortable putting him under. You can also discuss freezing the cyst with your vet. I hope this helps guide you in the right direction. Please let me know if you have any other questions or concerns and I would be more than happy to help you further.

I don't blame you for being concerned! You're right that congestive heart failure does increase the risk associated with anesthetic procedures, so we want to be very cautious about going forward with surgery in dogs who have this problem. I would recommend sitting down with your veterinarian to discuss the pros and cons of doing the neuter surgery in Wesley's case. In particular, you may want to ask about his life expectancy with congestive heart failure, and whether it's likely that the testicular tumor will progress enough to cause any serious problems before that. If the tumor appears to be slow-growing and is not currently bothering him, it may be reasonable to leave it alone rather than take the risk of surgery.

Hello. Much depends on Asto's general health status & how bad the murmur is. If she is quite healthy & happy & the murmur is a quiet one, your vet should be able to do the surgery. But if the murmur is severe, I would have her surgery done at a large specialty surgical center, or veterinary college where there are many experts to deal with any issues that might come up during the procedure. Thanks for using Petco Pet Education Center, formerly Petcoach.

If you are worried about this heart the best test to have done before surgery would be an echocardiogram (an ultrasound of the heart) as that will tell you how the heart is actually functioning and if it can pump blood efficiently. That is what I would have done if I was in your position. Unfortunately, you can do all the testing in the world and there is no guarantee that he will survive the surgery. That is just the nature of a living being. The same happens with people. You can take every precaution and they may still not survive. That being said, it is very rare for a "healthy" animal to not survive a routine/elective surgery. Does it happen, yes; is it likely, no. Hope this helps. Best wishes.

The lump looks like it may be a possible skin growth or even abscess (infection under the skin). Skin growths tend to be benign, however it is best to have the area looked at by your vet. Your vet can likely take a sample of the area without sedation/anesthesia for testing to see what treatment (if any) needs to be done. Your vet can also examine Luke and perform any bloodwork if needed to determine if it would be safe to remove the lump under anesthesia, if needed.

Thank you for submitting your question regarding your potential new puppy. Young puppies can occasionally have what is known as an innocent murmur. This is a heart murmur they will outgrow usually by 6 months of age and is not associated with any ongoing disease. Other murmurs are associated with congenital heart disease and go on to cause the puppy significant disease. I recommend having the puppy evaluated by a board certified veterinary cardiologist. A procedure known as an echocardiogram will likely be needed to assess for any structural heart disease. This will give you the longterm prognosis for the puppy. I hope this information helps!