Saving Andy: how an AI heart-scan saved this Deerhound’s life

Meet Andy

Andy, an exceptionally sweet, gentle and affectionate four-year-old Deerhound, had already been diagnosed with dilated cardiomyopathy – a serious heart condition – as well as an irregular rhythm that caused his heart to beat out of sync. Aside from his weight being slightly below normal (an expected effect of long-term heart disease), there weren’t any signs of anything else being amiss.

As he was taking medication to control his arrhythmia, everything appeared stable. Andy himself was showing zero signs of distress or discomfort.

What an AI-scan with Sonus Health spotted

During a routine check using the Sonus Health app, however, things changed. The scan revealed Andy’s heart was beating far too quickly in its irregular pattern. Our AI recognised this immediately: in dogs with Andy’s condition, a consistently high heart rate accelerates heart failure and can become fatal if not corrected.

For a dog with Andy’s condition, if the heart rate stays too high, the heart wears itself out much faster and the disease progresses much more quickly, ultimately leading to premature death (Pedro et al., 2023).

The result

Because the app flagged that his current medication wasn’t working as intended, Andy’s vet, Dr Laurent Locquet, was able to adjust the treatment plan straight away. The quick response prevented further strain on Andy’s heart and avoided long-term damage.

This simple scan from a phone gave Andy’s family the promise of many more happy years with him, not just a few stressful, heartbreaking months. His story is a powerful reminder that heart disease in dogs often changes without any visible signs, and our pets can’t tell us when something feels wrong. Deerhounds especially are exceptionally stoic breeds. Sonus Health, however, helps uncover those hidden changes, giving families and vets a chance to intervene earlier and preserve more of a dog’s healthy years.

Curious about the full heart-health report we generated for Andy? Request a copy from our team and see how Sonus Health identifies HR, HRV, murmurs, arrhythmias and more, all from a single smartphone scan.

Names and images in this story have been changed for patient privacy

Image credit: Manializa, CC BY-SA 4.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0>, via Wikimedia Commons