Specialized Ultrasound Technology for Your Pet’s Heart

Echocardiograms are key to identifying potential heart problems in your animal companion. Also known as an “echo”, an echocardiogram is an ultrasound of the heart. Like ordinary ultrasounds, they use high-frequency sound waves to produce a two-dimensional video of your pet’s cardiovascular system. Echocardiograms help us assess the thickness of the heart walls, the size of the heart chambers, and the heart blood flow patterns. This procedure helps us diagnose nearly all heart diseases, including:

• Valve abnormalities
• Heart muscle thickening
• Congenital diseases
• Heart tumors

Echocardiograms are performed in a quiet, darkened room. To complete the procedure, we lay your pet on his or her right side. A small region of fur is then clipped from both sides of the chest to improve the image created by the ultrasound transducer. The experience is relaxing and painless — in fact many pets fall asleep during the procedure.

At Hill Country Animal Hospital, our ultrasound system is state-of-the-art and all of our echocardiogram procedures are performed in-house by our nurse coordinator who has been trained in advanced imaging by the Academy of Veterinary Imaging. Our practice strives to use the latest diagnostic advancements in caring for our patients, allowing us to provide effective treatment in a timely manner.