My dog is having trouble breathing. What might a chest x-ray reveal?

If your dog is coughing or struggling to breathe, your veterinarian may take chest x-rays to look at his lungs. Tod Drost is a radiologist at Ohio State University: “Maybe they have pneumonia; maybe they have asthma, or an allergic condition.”

The lungs react differently to different conditions, so Drost says the patterns revealed in thoracic images can point to the root of a dog’s problem.

Chest radiographs may be used to look at a dog’s heart, too, because breathing difficulty can be linked to cardiac trouble. For example, thoracic radiographs of a dog with heart failure generally show a large heart and fluid in the lungs.

So when it comes to diagnosing respiratory problems, a chest x-ray can be a very powerful tool.

– Dr. Andrea Looney, DVM for the “Purina® Animal Instincts” Podcast Series

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