Warmth: One Room, Off the Floor, Close Together
When heating fails in winter, the winning move is shrinking the space you are all trying to keep warm. Choose the smallest comfortable room, ideally one with a door that closes and few exterior walls, move your dog's bed into it, and keep the whole household — people included — in there as much as possible. Shared body heat in a closed room makes a measurable difference over a long night, and your dog will naturally choose the warmest arrangement if you let her settle near people rather than alone in her usual spot in a cooling hallway.
Raise her bed off a hard floor on a folded blanket, rug, or spare duvet, block the draught line under the door with a rolled towel, and give her blankets she can burrow into rather than a single cover draped over her, which slides off the moment she turns. Most healthy adult dogs with a dry coat manage a cool house well; the dogs to watch closely are puppies, very old dogs, tiny and short-coated breeds, and any dog who is unwell. Shivering that does not stop when she is nestled in, cold ears and paws that stay cold, and unusual lethargy mean she needs warming up against a person under blankets and, if she does not improve or seems unwell, veterinary advice as soon as services are reachable.
Water and Food When Everything Is Off
Water is the detail owners forget until the bowl is a disc of ice. In an unheated house, check her bowl every few hours and break or replace surface ice; keep a filled container of drinking water stored in the warm room with you so it stays liquid, and offer drinks little and often if she is reluctant to take a full bowl of near-freezing water.
Feed as normally as your situation allows. If you feed fresh or cooked food that depends on a fridge and oven, switch to whatever complete shelf-stable food you have rather than scraps from your own emergency meals, which tend to be salty and rich. Keep her food, and any candles or portable stoves you are using for yourselves, in separate zones — a hungry dog in a dark kitchen investigates exactly the surfaces where a camping stove is lit.
Calm in the Dark, and Safe Toilet Trips
Dogs read a power cut mostly through you. The house sounds wrong — no hum, no heating clicks — and the dark is total in a way modern dogs rarely experience, but a household that talks normally, keeps a wind-up torch routine, and sticks to familiar walk and meal times tells her nothing is required of her. Keep one low light source in the warm room rather than plunging her between bright torch beams and darkness, and give her a long-lasting chew or a snuffle game in a blanket to occupy the long evening; boredom, not fear, is what drives most restless pacing in the dark.
Take her out on a lead with a torch even in your own garden. Gates blow open in the storm that caused the cut, fences come down, and a dog who slips out in the dark and noise is hard to search for without power. Wipe and dry her paws and belly when she comes back in, because a damp dog in a cold house gets cold quickly. If the cut runs into a second day, rotate who checks water, warmth, and toilet trips through the night so nothing depends on one exhausted person — writing that rota and the warm-room setup into KinsLe Family Sharing means every adult in the house runs the same power-cut plan for her without waking you to ask.