Maple is twelve years old, seventy four pounds, and her vet found arthritis in both hips this past February. The first thing that changed was not her walking. It was the getting up. She would push with her front legs, stall halfway, and look back at me like I owed her an explanation. I did not have one. What I had was a rolled bath towel I slid under her belly for a few days, and then a padded sling from LOOBANI that I ordered in the second week of June and have used nearly every day since.
It is not a full body harness and it does not treat anything. It is a sling that goes under the belly with a handle on either side, so my hands take part of the weight her back end is having trouble carrying. Dr. Amari was plain with me that this is a handling tool, not medicine. It will not reverse arthritis and it does not replace whatever your own vet recommends. What it does is make the ordinary parts of a day possible again. Here are ten of them, in the order I noticed them.
Start with the getting up. Everything else follows from there.
Maple is 74 pounds and I am 65. The LOOBANI sling lets me take a share of that weight without putting a hand on her sore hips.
Amazon Check Today's Price on Amazon →It gets her up off the floor without either of us straining
The first time I used it, Maple had been down on the bedroom carpet for a while and could not get her back legs under her. I slid the sling beneath her belly, took a handle in each hand, and lifted with my legs instead of my back. She stood. That was the whole event. No yelping, no ten minutes of coaxing. She is seventy four pounds and I am sixty five years old, and the arithmetic of me lifting her unaided was never going to work. A padded strip of nylon and two handles changed the arithmetic. I still let her do as much of the standing as she can, because the point is to help, not to carry her everywhere.
It turns three wooden back steps into something she still asks to do
Our back door has three steps down to the fenced yard. By May, the evening trip out had become a negotiation. She would stand at the top and think about it. Now I loop the sling under her and take maybe a third of her weight going down, a little more coming up. She does the rest herself. Three steps is not much. It is also the difference between a dog who asks to go out and a dog who quietly stops asking. If your dog faces more than three or four steps, or a full staircase, a ramp is the better answer. I added one in August for exactly that reason.
It gets her into the Outback without a two person lift
For vet visits and the odd ride, Walt and I used to lift her in together, one of us at the front and one at the back. It worked until it stopped working. Now I put the sling under her rear, set her front paws on the bumper, and take the back end while she does the climbing. That is one person instead of two. Walt still comes out to hold the hatch, mostly because he likes to be involved. The sling is sized X-Large and built for large dogs, but the real limit in this house is my shoulders, and this keeps them out of the argument.
It lets me help without grabbing her hips, which she will not tolerate
Before the sling I was doing what a lot of people do, which is putting a hand on each hip and pushing. Maple put up with it for about a week. Then she started turning her head and stepping away. I do not blame her. Arthritic hips are sore hips, and a palm pressed into one is not comfort. The sling spreads the lift across her belly instead, with a soft lining against her skin. She stands still for it now, and that tells me more than any listing description could.
It makes a bad morning shorter
Some mornings she is stiff and slow and everything takes twice as long. On those mornings the sling comes out before breakfast and we do the trip to the back door at her pace, with me carrying some of her weight. It does not make the stiffness go away. Nothing I have bought does that. What it does is cut the whole ordeal down, so she is back on her bed and eating sooner instead of standing in the hall deciding whether the trip is worth it. Shorter bad mornings are worth something when your dog is twelve.
It keeps her steady on the oak floor after the April slip
In April, her back legs went out from under her on the oak hall floor. She was not hurt, but I saw the whole thing and it stayed with me for weeks. The oak is slick and she is not steady on it. The sling gives me a hold on her when we cross it, so if a leg starts to slide I have something to take up the slack. It is not a substitute for traction on a hard floor, and I bought separate socks for that job. It is the difference between watching and catching.
It lets her get to the water bowl on her own schedule
Maple drinks a good deal in the night. Before the sling, a trip across the bedroom carpet and down the hall at two in the morning was a decision she made less and less often, and I did not care for what that meant. Now if she stirs, I get up, put the sling on, and walk with her. She gets her water. I get back to bed knowing she is steady on her feet. Nobody in this house sleeps through the night the way we used to, but at least the reason is age and not thirst.
It puts my hands on her hind end twice a day
This is not a feature LOOBANI advertises, but it is the one I have come to value most. Every time I slide that sling under her, I am touching her hips and her back legs. I notice things. A spot that feels warmer than yesterday. A morning when she flinches and a morning when she does not. I write those down for Dr. Amari. I am not diagnosing anything, and neither should you, but a nurse's habit is a nurse's habit. Hands on an animal twice a day notice what eyes at a distance miss.
It folds into the bag and lives by the back door
The sling comes with a small storage bag and folds down into it. Mine hangs on the hook by the back door where the leashes are. That sounds like a small thing and it is not. A mobility aid that lives in a closet is a mobility aid that does not get used, because every single trip becomes a decision about whether it is worth fetching. Because it is right there, I do not make that decision anymore. I just put it on her.
It goes in the washing machine
It is nylon with a soft sheepskin-like lining, and it sits against her belly, and her belly is close to the ground. The listing says machine wash and I have taken it at its word on a gentle cycle, and it has come out fine. The lining has stayed soft and hanging it to dry by the back door takes an afternoon. If a sling cannot be washed it will start to smell like a dog, and then it will stop being used. I have watched that happen with other gear.
What I'd Skip
I would skip the bath towel. I used one for the few days before the sling arrived and it bunched and it slipped. A towel has no handle and nothing to grip, so all the work goes into your forearms at the worst possible angle. I would also skip buying a sling and expecting it to be the whole plan. It does nothing for the floor she walks on, the bed she sleeps on, or the steps she climbs, and I bought four other things for those jobs. And I would skip leaving any sling on a dog unattended, because this is a handling tool, not a garment to be worn around the house.
One more thing I would skip, and this one matters. Do not treat a sling as a diagnosis and do not treat it as treatment. Weak hips in a twelve year old dog and a disc problem in a four year old dog are not the same situation, and the handling that helps one can hurt the other. Ask your vet before you start using one, and ask what your dog should and should not be doing on her own. Maple's answer came from Dr. Amari, not from me.
The sling did not make her younger. It made the eight feet between her bed and the back door a walk she would still take on her own.
Seventy four pounds is more than my back can take. Two handles are not.
Five months in, the LOOBANI sling still hangs by the back door and still goes on Maple twice a day. Today's price is on the listing.
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