Nursing of cardiac patients generally falls into two categories, chronic and acute. Chronic nursing may be pre-congestive heart failure (CHF) and post CHF. This means patients may have heart disease without having presented with CHF. Patients also require chronic nursing after an acute onset of CHF. Acute nursing includes presentation, typically to an emergency center, for rapid control of CHF. This session reviews the American College of Veterinary Internal Medicine consensus statement regarding the stages of heart disease, then link nursing schema to each stage of heart disease. Many diagnostics and therapies overlap into different stages. For instance, echocardiography is indicated at all stages of heart disease to monitor progression of cardiac enlargement. Certain therapies have specific indications for their introductions. This overview provides a 10,000 foot perspective of cardiac nursing.