Re: [pyrnet] Strokes and heart attacks.

["Linda Weisser" <lmweisser@attbi.com>]

----- Original Message -----
From: "Stephanie Whitney" <srwhitney1@earthlink.net>

Please clarify.  My sheltie/poodle mix had congestive heart failure.  The
morning he died, we found him face and chest pressed to the floor.  Hard to
explain what it looked like but we were sure that he was having a heart
attack.  He died before we got him to the emergency vet.  His heart didn't
just stop.  It appeared to be a violent sort of event.>>

Did you do an autopsy?  Did the vet diagnose congestive heart failure?  Dogs
can die of a number of things that result in what looks like a terrible
event. Especially when they are old. He may have died of heart failure but
that is not the same thing as what we call a "heart attack" which is a
violent event generally connected to an ill functioning heart of some sort.
Often problems of which we are not aware.  Clogged arteries, plaque etc.
Dogs do not get these conditions and so don't have "heart attacks".  His
heart failure, if that is what it was, may have been the end act in some
other disease process or bodily failure.  Are you sure that he did not have
some heart malfunction or malformation of which you were not aware?  Strokes
OTOH can be quite the same in dogs as they are in people.

Linda