Chewy, a heartdog of a different kind.

To tell you about the heart disease of my Chewy, I have to reach back a little more.

With almost two years Chewy suffered his first epileptic fit in January 2010. Further epileptic fits appeared in March and so I decided to examine the roots of this disease – with all its needed and possible examinations at veterinary specialists.

In September 2010 it came that we went to the highly regarded and respected cardiologist Dr. Tobias in Hannover for a heart ultrasound.

The diagnosis we had to receive that day, shocked me very much. Chewy not only suffered from epilepsy but was heart sick too. Dr. Tobias diagnosed DCM – dilatative cardiomyopathy. In other words Chewy suffers from cardiac insufficiency.

Immediately he was adjusted to Pimobendan. In the beginning I bought the expensive Vetmedin. Chewy needed 15mg each day.

Half a year later we went to the first follow-up appointment to Dr. Tobias. I felt very tense. It was all the more gratifying, that Chewy reacted that well to the Pimobendan, that we could lower the dosage. It was the same another six month later, so that Chewy gets along with a daily dose of 7,5mg since a few years. Interim I changed the preparation to a bit cheaper chewing tablets.

That’s how the years went by. Chewys DCM wasn’t conspicuous. Jogging, running next to the bike, dog sport – no problems at all. The heart disease steps into the background a little bit. Even the epileptic fits came less and less due to our holistically working veterinarian. So Chewy is seizure-free for years and everything turned rather positive.

In March 2017 we went to the annual heart ultrasound to Dr. Tobias again.

Unfortunately we had to find out that Chewys heart shows worse values than last year. I was pretty depressed. Luckily Chewy still got half of the recommended dosage of Pimobendan, so there is much room to improve. Chewy now gets 10mg a day.

Chewy still runs next to the bike, but now I make sure that the laps don’t exceed 12km. I also reduced the speed and frequency. We won’t stop going to the dog sport. Chewy was born for the training area – if I would take this away from him, his life would be a good deal poorer.

I really hope that the small boost of Pimobendan helps Chewy and that his heart stabilises again, so that I may accompany him for many years.

(Eva Lipiec, owner of Chewy)