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Was my puppy's enlarged heart death preventable or vet negligence?

Updated On September 23rd, 2025

Pet's info: Dog | French Bulldog | Female | unspayed | 3 months and 1 day old | 7 lbs

My 3 month old puppy passed away at the vet office. She went in for chest X-rays as she was showing difficulty signs in breathing. Shortly after the vet informs she had suffered a heart attack. He later showed the xrays that showed an enlarged heart. Shortly after he informed she had passed away. Could this have been prevented? Is this negligence from the vet office that caused her to have a heart attack?

2 Answers

Most Helpful Answer

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Answered By Linda G, MS, DVM

Veterinarian

Published on February 7th, 2020

Hello. I am so sorry for your loss. It is very hard to say if this was preventable, but quite likely, it was not. This degree of heart disease in such a young puppy would have come from a congenital birth defect, a fairly common occurrence in this breed of dog. If a murmur was picked up early enough, an electrocardiogram would have been able to pinpoint the problem, & the next step would have been open heart surgery. This was absolutely not negligence by your veterinarian. Birth defects do happen in animals, just like in people. Some are manageable, others, like this are sadly not, unless you go to extraordinary measures. I know you are sad about this loss. Please accept my sincere condolences & thanks for using Petco Pet Education Center, formerly Petcoach.

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    Answered By Dr. Elizabeth

    Veterinarian

    Published on

    I'm sorry to hear this happened. Enlarged hearts commonly present as trouble breathing. By the time this clinical symptom shows up, the condition is already very advanced and the heart is very diseased. Unfortunately there is not much you can do once the process is advanced. I cannot speak for your veterinarian but as a rule, we are trained to handle very sick and fragile patients but we cannot save all of them. If you have questions, you may ask your veterinarian about their protocols for fragile heart patients. In a young puppy, the heart enlargement is most likely congenital and severely affected puppies don't commonly survive into adulthood. I recommend to ask your veterinarian about their clinical impression. You should also let the breeder know. Some heart conditions are genetic and there may be screening available to prevent this from happening to another pup. My condolences on the loss of your puppy. It's always hard to lose a pet and especially hard when they are so young. Please feel free to post any additional questions.

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