It’s every pet owner’s nightmare: your happy, playful puppy suddenly falls ill and requires intense veterinary treatment. Unfortunately, this scenario is a reality for far too many dog owners because of canine parvovirus, or parvo.

Heart disease in dogs is a commonly diagnosed condition. A dog’s heart, lungs, and blood vessels combine to form his circulatory system. The heart is the central player in this delicate circuit, and there are things that can go wrong, resulting in heart disease.

Your veterinarian has just diagnosed your cat with a heart problem. If this is the case for you, it is very likely that, upon physical examination, your cat had a heart murmur, a very fast heart rate, or an abnormal heart rhythm. Heart disease is common in cats but can be difficult to diagnose. One of the reasons for this is that cats are very good at hiding signs of illness, and feline heart disease in its early stages may produce very subtle or no signs.