Introduction

A 9-year-old female mix breed (Dachshund x Pomeranian) dog weighed 9 kg was having difficulty breathing, exercise intolerance, anorexia, vomit, and a decrease in body weight. Then the dog was referred to Animal Teaching Hospital, Faculty of Veterinary Medicine - Bogor Agricultural University to get an echocardiography examination.

Objectives

This study aimed to investigate the cause of the clinical signs and the possibility of heart problems through an echocardiography examination.

Methods

The anamnesis was recorded, and the physical examination was done to evaluate further health problems, and an echocardiography was performed as supporting diagnostic procedure.

Results

Physical examination has shown that the dog was lethargic, arrhythmic, murmur heart sounds (on the right side), and also exhibit an abdominal pain. Further examination, the bright-mode (B-mode), motion-mode (M-mode), and color flow doppler-mode (CFD-mode) echocardiography, were then performed. The echocardiography showed that the tricuspid valve was thickening and was not perfectly closing which caused a turbulence of blood flow. Moreover, there was also an enlargement of the left atrium even though the value of fractional shortening (FS) and ejection fraction (EF) were still in normal limit.

Conclusions

From these results, the diagnosis for the dog was concluded as tricuspid valve dysplasia (TVD) and mild left atrial enlargement. Despite the rare number of TVD case in animals, but an immediate echocardiography examination should be performed in a patient with impaired cardiac function, to detect and identify potential heart problems as quickly as possible.