When Freya was diagnosed with heart disease, I knew some things were obviously going to change. She’d need medication. We’d have to keep a closer eye on her breathing and activity. There would be more vet appointments, more monitoring, and a whole new list of things for me to worry about at 2 AM.
What I didn’t really think about at first was how many little changes we’d end up making around the house.
None of them are particularly dramatic. We didn’t turn our house into a canine cardiac care unit. Most of the changes were cheap, and a few cost us absolutely nothing.
But together, they’ve made it easier for Freya to live her normal life while also helping us manage her heart disease.
And that’s really been our goal.
Freya is still Freya. She still wants to patrol her yard, investigate suspicious noises, keep tabs on every chipmunk within a five-mile radius, and occasionally lose her mind over something that absolutely does not require that level of enthusiasm.
We’re not trying to stop her from being a dog. We’re just trying to make it a little easier for her to be one without overdoing it.
1. We Gave Her a “Little Yard”
This has probably been the biggest change we’ve made.
We have a very large fenced yard, which was fantastic when Freya could tear around it at full Pharaoh Hound speed. Unfortunately, it’s also full of things that make her want to tear around it at full Pharaoh Hound speed.
Chipmunks live under the pallets near my garden. Squirrels hang out around the side deck. The shed is apparently a source of endless intrigue.
And then there are the bears. Those aren’t exactly occasional visitors anymore, especially as it gets closer to winter and they go on a major eating binge.
Trying to keep a sighthound with a high prey drive calm when wildlife appears in her yard is an exercise in futility. I can’t exactly yell, “Remember your heart condition!” while she takes off after a chipmunk and expect her to reconsider her priorities.
So, we divided the yard. Freya now has what we call her “little yard.” It’s still a pretty generous amount of space compared to a typical dog run, but it blocks access to the areas most likely to get her worked up.
She can go out there by herself during the day. She can sniff around, go potty, lie in the sun, investigate whatever needs investigating, and generally do normal dog things.
She still gets to go into the big yard, too, but now she only goes out there when one of us is with her.
The point isn’t to keep her from moving. Her vet hasn’t told us that she needs to live in a bubble, and now that her medications are working well, she’s allowed to have some fun.
She can bark. She can get excited. She can chase something for a few feet.
What she can’t do anymore is launch herself across our entire yard at full Pharaoh Hound speed or get so worked up that she doesn’t know when to stop. The smaller yard lets us give her freedom without constantly hovering over her.
You don’t have to go crazy here with expensive fences. We used a portable pet fence combined with gardening fences, the side of the house, and other standing structures to section off Freya’s “little yard.” These portable fences by Amazon Basics are inexpensive enough that if you need a few to create your own section, they won’t totally break the bank.
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2. We Blocked Some of Her Favorite Views
This one cost exactly zero dollars. We keep the side door closed now. Freya used to be able to look through it and see the side deck and surrounding area, which also happens to be prime squirrel and chipmunk territory. Seeing one through the door could send her from peacefully hanging out inside to DEFCON 1 before she’d even made it outdoors.
So now she can’t see them. Problem mostly solved.
Obviously, closing a particular door isn’t going to help every dog with heart disease. The broader idea is to figure out what unnecessarily sends your dog into overdrive.
Maybe it’s people walking past the front window. Maybe it’s the neighbor’s dog. Maybe it’s delivery drivers, deer, squirrels, motorcycles, or the audacity of someone walking down their own street.
If you can remove some of those triggers without taking anything meaningful away from your dog, it’s worth trying. Especially since closing doors and curtains costs absolutely nothing but a few seconds of time.
3. There Is Water Pretty Much Everywhere Now
Freya takes Lasix (furosemide), a diuretic commonly prescribed for dogs with congestive heart failure. One of the very predictable results of taking a diuretic is that she drinks and pees a LOT more than she used to.
She needs access to fresh water at all times.
Rather than relying on one water bowl, we’ve basically created hydration stations throughout Freya’s little kingdom.
There’s water in the kitchen, living room, and bedroom, plus another bowl outside on the back deck that’s part of her little yard.
We check them frequently and refill them as needed. It’s a very small change, but it means she never has to go wandering around looking for water when she’s thirsty.
And one important note here: we don’t restrict her water because she’s drinking or urinating a lot. That’s an expected effect of her medication, and she needs to be able to replace the fluid she’s losing. If your veterinarian has given you different instructions for your own dog, obviously follow those.
If you have a small dog (or don’t mind refilling a fountain regularly), I recommend the new PetSafe HydroSphere. I love it because it’s cordless, so I can put it literally anywhere, and it gives Freya a constant supply of filtered water.
The PetSafe HydroSphere 60 oz Cordless Fountain combines motion-activated water flow, UVC sanitation, and Ion-X filtration in a quiet, rechargeable design. With up to 30 days of battery life and no outlet required, it’s easy to place almost anywhere.
4. We Planned for Accidents
The other side of all that drinking is exactly what you’d expect. Freya is pretty good about asking to go outside, but Lasix doesn’t always care about anyone’s plans.
She’s also a senior dog, so between the medication and age, occasional accidents and leakage happen. Rather than making that a bigger deal than it needs to be, we’ve tried to make our house easier to clean.
We bought a water-resistant, machine-washable area rug to go over the carpet in the living room, and we’re adding a waterproof rug pad underneath it to protect the actual carpet.
It’s not particularly exciting, but neither is trying to get dog pee out of wall-to-wall carpeting. The washable rug wins.
Before you buy a washable rug, make sure it will actually fit in your washing machine. We learned this one the annoying way. The first rug we bought was technically machine washable, but it was way too big and thick for our washer. Now it lives in the garage until I can get it to a laundromat with one of those super-size machines. If easy cleanup is the whole point, check the rug’s size, weight, and washing instructions before you buy.
5. We Made the Floor More Comfortable, Too
Protecting the carpet wasn’t our only consideration. Freya can’t always get onto the sofa as easily as she used to. She’s doing it more often again now that her medications are working better and she’s feeling better overall, but sometimes she still chooses the floor.
We have several good dog beds around the house, but one of our simplest solutions turned out to be two thick memory-foam bath mats in front of the sofa.
They’re cushioned enough to give her a comfortable place to lie down, they’re easy for her to step onto and off of, and they’re incredibly easy to wash if she leaks on them.
Sometimes the $20 bathroom solution works just as well as the $100 “senior orthopedic canine whatever” solution.
Freya doesn’t care what section of the store it came from.
I can’t find the exact bathmat that we bought, but it was something along the lines of these:
This bathroom mat absorbs moisture quickly after a bath or shower – ideal for busy parents rushing to get kids ready, elderly users who need a non-slip surface, pet owners dealing with wet paws, and morning rush hours when every second counts.
6. We Made It Easier for Her to Get Onto the Sofa
We’ve also given her an easier way to climb onto the couch instead of expecting her to jump straight up.
In our case, an extra dog bed works as a step. Some of this isn’t necessarily because of her heart. Freya is ten now, and she has some stiffness that comes with being an older dog. We’ve had to learn not to look at every change through the heart-disease lens.
Sometimes a senior dog just needs an easier way onto the couch. Either way, if we can reduce the amount of effort it takes her to do something she enjoys, we do.
Of course, you don’t have to use a dog bed. You can go with something like these steps. I’m considering these for Freya to have on hand because they’re versatile enough for helping her get on the couch and into the car.
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7. Food Is Available When She’s Ready to Eat It
Freya’s appetite has been one of the hardest parts of this whole experience. Some mornings she eats breakfast like she hasn’t seen food since dinosaurs ruled the earth. Other days, she looks at the exact same meal as if I’ve presented her with a bowl of drywall.
We’ve stopped expecting her to eat according to a strict schedule. That doesn’t mean she gets unlimited food all day.
We portion out what she’s supposed to have, but we give her more flexibility about when she eats it. If she doesn’t want breakfast first thing in the morning but decides she’s hungry a little later, the food is available to her.
This has taken a lot of the pressure out of mealtimes for both of us.
Obviously, this won’t work for every dog. Some medications need to be given with food or on an empty stomach, some medical conditions require carefully timed meals, and leaving certain foods sitting out for hours isn’t safe.
For Freya and the food we’re feeding her, though, relaxing the schedule has helped tremendously.
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8. We Changed Her Bowls
This sounds ridiculously minor, but it helped. During the worst of Freya’s appetite problems, we tried what felt like everything. Somewhere along the way, I discovered that she was much more willing to eat out of a bamboo bowl than the metal bowls she’d been using.
Why? Ask Freya.
Maybe she doesn’t like the feel of her tongue or teeth hitting metal. Maybe she doesn’t like the reflection. Maybe bamboo simply complements the dining-room décor and she has standards I wasn’t previously aware of.
I have no idea.
And I’m definitely not saying that buying a bamboo bowl is going to magically fix a sick dog’s appetite.
But when you’re struggling to get a dog to eat, sometimes it’s worth experimenting with the easy, inexpensive variables. Try a plate instead of a bowl. Try a different material. Try a wider or shallower dish.
Our bamboo bowls cost less than $10. For us, it was absolutely worth trying.
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9. Potty Breaks Happen When She Says They Happen
This goes back to Lasix. If Freya asks to go out, we let her out. It doesn’t particularly matter if she was outside 20 minutes ago.
She’s taking medication specifically designed to make her body get rid of excess fluid. Increased urination isn’t her being difficult or suddenly forgetting her potty training. Her bladder simply fills much faster now.
Having the little yard has made this easier, too, because we can open the door and let her go without someone having to accompany her on a grand tour of the property every single time.
Considering how often “every single time” can be with Lasix, that’s been good for everyone involved.
10. We Aim for Calm-ish, Not Calm
This may be the biggest philosophical change we’ve made. In the beginning, especially when Freya was first diagnosed and we were still trying to get everything stabilized, I was terrified of her getting too excited.
Now that her medications are working better, we’ve found a much more reasonable middle ground. She’s allowed to get excited. She’s allowed to bark. She’s allowed to chase something for a few feet. She’s allowed to be happy and silly and have opinions about the wildlife trespassing on her property.
We’re just trying to prevent her from going from excited to completely over-the-top.
For Freya, that means no more full-speed sprints across the enormous yard. We interrupt things before she gets too wound up. We limit access to the places where she’s most likely to encounter something that sends her into hunting mode.
I don’t want her remaining years to consist of everyone constantly telling her to stop doing things she loves. Heart disease changed some of her limits. It didn’t change who she is.
The Best Changes Have Been the Ones That Fit Her
If there’s one thing I’ve learned from all of this, it’s that living with a dog with heart disease involves a surprising amount of problem-solving.
There’s no universal checklist of household changes that every dog needs.
Your dog may not care about squirrels. You may not have carpet. Your dog might happily eat every meal at exactly 7 AM and 5 PM until the end of time. You hopefully don’t have bears wandering around your deck with alarming regularity.
The trick is looking at your own dog’s day and figuring out where things have become harder.
Where are they using more energy than necessary? What gets them overly excited? Are they having trouble getting comfortable? Can they easily reach water? Is medication creating new problems, like more frequent potty trips? Is there something small making eating harder?
Then start there.
Some of the things we’ve changed for Freya are almost laughably simple. Close a door. Add another water bowl. Put down a bathmat. Change a food bowl.
Others, like dividing our yard, took a little more work and strategically placed fences.
None of them changed the fact that she has heart disease. They’ve just helped us build her new limitations into everyday life so we don’t have to think about them every second of every day.
And I think that’s been good for all of us.
Freya gets to spend less time hearing us tell her what she can’t do.
And she gets to spend more time just being Freya.
