One of the vets here is the only internal medicine specialist in Arkansas and for that reason I drove 200 miles to take my 2 young Newfoundlands for heart exams to assess their suitability for breeding. The breed is prone to a genetic heart condition and I felt the extra effort and expense of a specialist was justified to gain the assurance that my dogs were free of the condition and would not, therefore pass it on to their offspring. The exam was by auscultation (listening to the heart) which requires a quiet and calm setting. In this instance however, rather than examining my dogs individually, both of my dogs (weighing over 100 lbs each) , along with my wife, the vet and myself, were taken together into a tiny exam room barely big enough for one large dog, let alone all of us. The exam table was too small for my dogs so they were examined on the floor. Auscultation is subtle and can be challenging. Simply the noise from the panting of the dog can mask murmurs. In this case, my dogs
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