UPDATE heart murmur? anyone have any experience or updates?

[Mary, Scrappy, Sully and Olive]

Grover, who will be 4 in a couple of weeks, went to the vet last night for an ear infection.  Unfortunately the vet thinks he hears a heart murmur.  We have an appointment on Monday with a cardiologist for a consult and an echo-cardiogram.  He also has a strange cough on occasion and he's been kind of mopey lately ......both symptoms that could mean just about anything I guess(allergies?), but the vet thought checking the murmur would be prudent.

I searched the forum for heart murmur discussions and I noticed a couple.  Just wondering if anyone can give me advice or for those of you who have doodles with murmurs...can you update me on their health and progress? 

The hardest part for me will be leaving him at the hospital I think.  Hopefully, the cardiologist will find nothing and I'll be thrilled that my vet was wrong! Although I know there are much worse conditions, I still hate to think about losing any precious time with either of my two doodles.

Thanks for any advice. 

UPDATE:

Just wanted to thank everyone for the kind words.  After a very long day, Grover was diagnosed with a mild heart murmur.  He should be fine, I just have to figure out how not to worry about him;)

It was an extremely long day, as the cardiologist is actually a traveling cardiologist and no one knows when he'll show up.  They ask you to check in at  8am, then tell you that they've never seen the doctor there before 3pm before.  I refused to have Grover crated for 8 hours, thought that would be the worst part for him,  so I chose to stay with him and we hung around all day in the waiting room.  What a horrible policy they have...won't let you take the dog back later in the day when the doctor calls in because he could say I'll be there in 2 hours or in 10 minutes...if you don't make it back, of course he won't wait. Doctor sneaks in at 3:20 today, makes no attempt to meet with me before or after the 5 minute echo, even though I requested a consult....he passes the diagnosis off to a very nice ER doctor who then answered all my questions, while he snuck back out.  Now I know how busy he must be, but can I tell you that I actually went to high school with the jerk and never even had the opportunity to say hello to him....and it's a very small hospital...which is probably good because after 7 hours of waiting, I wasn't in the best of moods.

I also know that I could have left at any time....it was just very important to get the diagnosis as soon as I could to ease my mind.

Needless to say that if Grover needs further treatments, we won't be going to that particular animal hospital.

Just glad it's done and grateful it's wasn't a worse diagnosis:)

Thanks again to everyone for the well wishes and happy thoughts:)

[Leslie and Halas]

I'm glad the heart murmur is mild and something you can deal with.  There's a dog on our flyball team with a heart murmur.  She doesn't come to tournaments any more, but she still gets to come to practice to run.  Her mom just has to keep checking her gums to make sure that she's still good.  She doesn't do as much running as the other dogs, and the excitement of a real tournament wouldn't be good for her, but she still has a normal, happy, active life.  She was out of commission for a little while, because she had to have meds, etc., but she's doing great now.  I'm betting that Grover will also still be able to do all of the things he enjoys.

[Mary, Scrappy, Sully and Olive]

thanks, I'm just glad it wasn't a worse diagnosis and hopeful that it will continue to stay mild, without meds.

[F, Calla & Luca]

I am glad the murmur didn't raise any need for further intervention now. I would find a place for followup that has an in house cardiologist.

[Bonnie and Kona]

I'm so glad Grover's heart murmur is mild and that you've discovered you need to find a different group to care for your dear doodle. Happy Days Ahead!

[Sue & Lily Grace]

I am so glad you got a good Diagnosis. It is not unusual for speciality animal hospitals to treat you as if they are doing you a favor by letting you be there. I am hoping it is because they see such sickness on a daily basis, Cassie and I ran into this when we saw an oncologist in Brandon FL. It was not the doctor but the staff and I cried for the 2 hour trip home because of the lack of compassion we received. If they ask you to fill out a survey, tell the truth.

[Mary, Scrappy, Sully and Olive]

so sorry you had such a bad experience, hope everything is okay with Cassie.  I guess it's the same as with some human hospitals....compassion should be a requirement or they should find some other field to work in....can you retrain compassion back into people?

Thanks for the kind words:)

[Ricki and Tara (doodle)]

Grover is so beautiful! I'm glad to hear that his heart murmur is mild but I know it is hard to hear that anything is not quite as it should be with our doodles!