For a dog with stiff hips, the home either works as physiotherapy or as an obstacle course, and the difference is decided along a handful of paths she walks many times a day. Map those daily routes first: from her bed to her food and water, from her bed to the garden door, and the route she takes to join you in the room where the household spends its evenings. Every change below belongs on those routes before anywhere else, because a rug in a room she rarely enters does nothing for the hips that struggle on the journey she makes at dawn.
Grip and Level Going Along the Routes
Stiff hips fail her in two moments: when a hind foot slides outward as she pushes up or turns, and when she must lift her hindquarters up a step. Cover the routes with rugs or runners that have non-slip backing, butted edge to edge so there is no polished gap at a doorway or turn where she gathers herself to change direction. Where a route includes a step, into the garden or up into a raised room, fit a ramp with a gentle gradient, a textured surface and sides she can see, and teach it slowly with treats placed along it rather than expecting her to trust it at once. Move her bed, bowls and water onto one level if the house allows, so the route she needs at night, when she is stiffest, is short, flat and fully carpeted by your runners. Raise her food and water bowls modestly if your vet agrees, since a stiff-hipped dog who need not splay her front legs to reach the floor eats in better balance.
Gates Where Routes Meet Risk
Fit a gate at the stairs so descents happen with you beside her, or not at all: going down is the movement stiff hips handle worst, with her weight pitched forward onto her front legs and her hindquarters struggling to brake. A gate also belongs wherever her route crosses a slippery expanse you cannot cover, such as a tiled hall, until runners make it safe. Keep the routes themselves clear as a standing household rule, since shoes, bags and toys left on her path force the sudden sidesteps and tight turns that jar sore hips most. Add low night lighting along the bed-to-garden route, because she navigates by habit in the dark and a dim path lets her place each foot deliberately. Leave her bed and her favourite resting spots exactly where they are once the routes work; familiarity is part of the treatment, and each rearrangement costs her confidence she has to rebuild.
Test each ramp yourself on your knees before asking her to use it; if it flexes or feels steep to you, it will feel steeper to hips that hurt.
Checking the Layout Against Her Real Day
Walk each route at her pace, watching where she hesitates, scrambles or chooses a longer way around, since her choices mark the spots your layout still misses. Re-check after a week: runners creep, ramp surfaces wear smooth, and gates get propped open by busy households, so the audit needs repeating whenever you notice a new hesitation. Raise any rapid worsening, new reluctance to rise, or a route she suddenly refuses with your vet, as a change like that deserves investigation rather than more rugs. Draw the final routes and fittings into a simple home plan and file that plan in KinsLe, where Pet Passport holds it alongside her vet notes on those stiff hips.