Extra heart vibrations that are produced as a result of a disturbance in the blood flow -- enough, in fact, to produce audible noise -- are referred to as murmurs. Often, the murmurs are classified according to a variety of characteristics, including their timing. Systolic murmurs, for example, occur when the heart muscle contracts; diastolic murmurs occur when the heart muscle relaxes between beats; and continuous and to-and-fro murmurs occur throughout all or most of the cardiac cycle.
 
Heart murmurs can occur in both dogs and cats. If you would like to learn more about how t ...read more