List of Medical and Health Concerns Affecting the Heart and Blood Systems Across Multiple Breeds of Dogs
The Dog Heart & Blood Center provides a comprehensive list of ailments and medical conditions and is an invaluable resource for information about ailments, diseases and other afflictions affecting specific breeds of dogs. You can learn about all the different types of diseases and disorders that can affect your dog's heart & blood and what you can do to spot the symptoms early, understand how the condition will affect your dog, and what you can expect during the treatment and recovery phases of the illness.
The Heart – An Overview of Cardiac Physiology
A dog's heart is made up of four chambers - a right and left ventricle and a right and left atrium – that act in series to pump blood (and thereby carry oxygen, hormones and other nutrients) throughout the body. The heart chambers are separated and connected by valves that open and close in a particular manner based on electrical stimulation, pressure changes and other complex factors.
Arteries are the vessels that carry blood from the heart to body tissues. Veins are the vessels that return blood to the heart from those tissues. Unoxygenated blood enters the heart on the right side through large veins called the cranial and caudal vena cava. Blood goes first into the right atrium and then into the right ventricle, which are two separate chambers. From there, blood is pumped out through the large pulmonary artery and dispersed throughout the lungs, where it picks up a new supply of oxygen and then reenters the left side of the heart (left atrium, then left ventricle) via the pulmonary veins. “Pulmonary” simply means pertaining to the lungs. Finally, blood is forced out of the left ventricle into a large artery called the “aorta,” and from there travels through a complex maze of arteries that get smaller and smaller until they become “capillaries” - the tiny blood vessels that are the site of gas and nutrient exchange. After dropping off its oxygen supply and picking up carbon dioxide and other waste products, the blood returns to the right side of the heart through increasingly larger and larger veins, and ultimately the vena cava. When functioning normally, this circuit repeats itself in a predictable and finely-regulated fashion.