Yes, we have been over this issue before....buyer beware, just because I have 100 percent faith in MY VET does not mean I should trust him with ALL Veterinary problems. He is a 'General Practitioner' NOT a Specialist. He has a VERY good ear, but not as good as someone who has practiced, and trained in a specific area. I would never ask my dad to go to his regular doctor and not his Cardiologist for his heart check and I won't do it with a puppy.
SAR I'm extremely happy for you that you and your Vet have never found a heart problem with any of the 'puppies' you have produced. Thats fantastic, but what happens when one is 'missed' and found later in life? Have all the pups been checked by a Cardiologist after one year of age? If not, and given that we all know SAS can develop later in life, there is no way to know for sure you have produced 'clean and clear' without another check. No I'm not saying you have had problems, as I don't know, but neither do you, if you have not done those later checks. Mistakes can also happen and if you stay in this breed long enough it WILL happen. In my personal experience, one check by a general Vet, is not good enough for a puppy I want to purchase, so I would not expect any other puppy buyer to accept anything less either.
A Cardiologist can make mistakes to, even after a breeders Vet does an initial check. It happened to me with Lu. Her PDA was missed by the breeders Vet, who had been checking Newf hearts for over 20 years, and a Canine Cardiologist who was one of the top in the country, training others. It was also missed by MY Vet at the time, as well as two other Vets who had seen her over the almost 2 years before it was found. In my opinion there can never be enough checks, but only having one general practitioner check is not something I will ever take a chance on. Having personally lived through the scary thought that my girl could have died on the operating table while trying to save her life, I do not want to go through that again, or see anyone else go through it either. I was fortunate for a very good outcome, but had it been found earlier the surgery would not have been as dangerous, and SAS is not operable. As a breeder, I make informed decisions on the dogs I'm breeding and have them checked by a Cardiologist as an adult, and preferably by doppler. I will also have all puppies checked by my Vet as well as a Cardiologist before they go to their new homes. A letter signed by the Cardiologist will go with the puppy to its new owners, including a request for a doppler check at one year of age or older.
Having personally gone through this scare with Lu, and spoken at length with very good friends who watched a Newfoundland Puppy die from SAS, my opinion stands. It breaks my heart when I see owners come here to NewfNet or Newf-l looking for information because their puppies/dogs have a heart problem that could have been found if a Cardiologist had been consulted early on, or if the parents had been checked properly. Yes, my girls was missed initially, but another Cardiologist was the one who found it, not a regular practioner.