Heart Murmurs in Boston Terriers: What the Grade Means

Innocent puppy murmurs do resolve, usually by four months. Murmurs caused by a structural defect or a degenerating valve do not go away, though a murmur can occasionally sound quieter if the heart's output has dropped, which is the opposite of good news.

Not always immediately in a symptom-free adult. Many vets will recheck in six months and image if it gets louder or if anything changes. In a puppy, or in a dog with reduced stamina or a cough, imaging is the sensible next step rather than a wait.

Because degenerative valve change takes years to reach the point where the leak is audible. The disease did not start the week it was heard. This is why annual auscultation matters more as a small dog ages, and why the first year after detection is usually a monitoring year.

It depends on the cause, not the sound. Most practices want the murmur characterised before an elective procedure, because knowing whether the heart is structurally normal changes fluid rates and drug choices. In a brachycephalic breed the airway plan matters just as much as the cardiac one.

Yes. Anaemia, fever, high heart rate and stress can all produce transient turbulence that sounds like a murmur and disappears once the dog is calm and well. A repeat listen at a later, quieter visit sorts many of these out.

Ask for the grade, the location where it is loudest, whether it is systolic or diastolic, and what the recheck interval is. Write the answers down. Those four facts let any future vet compare against a real baseline instead of a memory.