Electrocardiographic Interpretations of Cardiac Disorders in Dogs

Cardiac disorders are the second most common disorders after cancer in dogs. Cardiac disorders are often fatal and/or silent killers in canines. In our country, in the majority of cardiovascular disorders, there is a frequent omission by clinician and client due to lack of awareness. However, any cardiac abnormality requires to be dealt with top priority to avoid morbidity and mortality in the dog population. The present study was aimed to know the electrocardiographic interpretations of cardiac disorders in dogs.

For this purpose, a total of 5110 dogs presented at Veterinary Clinical Complex, College of Veterinary Science and Animal Husbandry, Nanaji Deshmukh Veterinary Science University, Jabalpur, Madhya Pradesh, from November 2019 to June 2020 were screened. Among them, 137 dogs had clinical signs about cardiac disorders were subjected to thorough electrocardiographic recordings for interpretations of various cardiac conduction anomalies.

Electrocardiography revealed various types of supraventricular and ventricular abnormalities. Among supraventricular disorders maximally wandering pacemaker (30.60%) was recorded followed by atrial fibrillation (22.58%), left atrial enlargement (8.06%) and sinus arrest (4.84%) in dogs. Among ventricular abnormalities; left ventricular enlargement, right ventricular enlargement and biventricular enlargement (i.e. 41.67%, 37.49% and 8.33%, respectively) were commonly diagnosed.