congenital defects in dogs

Question
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Followup To
Question -
I have a great golden retriever male.  He is two years old and just sired a litter of 11 gorgeous pups. After the pups were born during a routine office visit the vet found a heart murmur.  Is there any known ratio as to how many of the pups may inherit the heart murmur?  I have read everything I can find on the subject but haven't found an answer.  Thank you so much for any information you can give me.
Answer -
There is no known ratio albeit some breeds of dogs are more prone to heart disease.  It is most likely an innocent flow murmur.  The pup should have his heart ausculted every 3 weeks and the murmur should sound less intense.  If it is not getting less intense, than you should proceed with further work-up such as EKG, x-rays and echocardiogram.  If it is an innocent murmur, then by 16 weeks it should have disappeared.  Any signs of pale gums, lethargy, failure to grow or poor appetite are not good signs in the face of a heart murmur in a pup.
Follow up question -
Thank you so much for your prompt answer.  After reading it, I realized I worded the question wrong.  The sire is the dog with the heart murmur that was just found and he is being treated.  I just can't seem to get an answer locally as to the probability of the pups inheriting the condition. Is the ratio unknown if the sire has a heart murmur?  Also, we are considering having our sire (who also happens to be the best pet ever) neutered because of the murmur on the advice of our vet.  However, the vet who gave the dog an ultrasound echocardiogram says the murmur shouldn't affect breeding him at all. This really confuses the issue for us.  In your opinion, based on possible damage to any puppies he might produce, should he be neutered?  Thank you again.  Cynthia

Answer
Any dog with a congenital defect, in my opinion, should be neutered.  Maybe at this point it is benign, but in several years that dog is more likely to go into heart failure.

You would have to speak to someone specializing in genetics to know what the ratio is for pups inheriting the condition.   There could be a potential that the bitch is a carrier and not affected with the disease, and you need to know if this is recessive or dominant or was it a mutation?