LOOBANI Lift Harness Review: Helping a Large Senior Lab Up and Down

Maple turned twelve this spring. She is a yellow Labrador mix, spayed, 74 pounds, and she has been my only dog since she came home as a puppy in the spring of 2014. In February, Dr. Amari looked at the x-rays and gave me the words for what I had been watching for months: arthritis in both hips, and in the left elbow too. I am not a veterinarian and I am not going to pretend to be one. I am a retired home health nurse, sixty-five years old, with a bad lower back of my own, and by March I knew two things. Maple needed help getting up. And I could not keep giving her that help with my arms alone.

That is how the LOOBANI Dog Lift Harness ended up on a hook by my back door. It is a padded sling that goes under the belly with handles for me to hold, made for the rear end only, not a full-body harness. I bought the X-Large in the second week of June 2026 for a 74 pound dog. Before it arrived I spent a few days hauling her up with a rolled bath towel, and the towel did work, in the way a folded newspaper works as an umbrella. It slid. It bunched. My knuckles ached. Five months later the LOOBANI is still the thing I reach for on her stiff mornings, and I have a fair amount to say about where it earns its keep and where it does not.

How I've Used It

Our house is a single-story ranch, and I am grateful for that every day. The hall and the kitchen are oak hardwood. The bedroom is carpet. The back door has three wooden steps down to a fenced yard. That is the whole map of Maple's day, and each one of those surfaces asks something different of her hips.

The routine is the same most mornings. She gets her Cosequin chewable tablet with breakfast in the kitchen, the amount the package directions give for her weight, and then she stands at the back door and waits. I fold the sling in half, crouch behind her, and slide it under her belly just forward of her hind legs. Then I straighten up, take a handle in each hand, and lift with my legs, not my back. She pushes off and does the rest. The whole thing takes about ten seconds now. In June it took a good deal longer and involved a treat held at nose height by my husband Walt.

Here is the part I want to be honest about. The sling does not lift her. I lift her. What the sling does is give me a place to hold that is not her skin, her hips, or her back legs, and it spreads whatever force I am putting out across the underside of her belly instead of concentrating it in one spot. When I used the towel, that force went wherever the fabric happened to bunch. With the LOOBANI, it goes where the padding is.

Some days she does not need it at all. On a good morning she gets up off the bedroom carpet on her own and walks to the door without looking back at me. On a bad morning, and there were more of those in July than there are now, she waits at the door and looks at the hook. I have learned to let her ask.

What the LOOBANI Sling Actually Is

It is a nylon sling, X-Large, listed for large dogs, and it is built for the rear end only. It does not go over her shoulders. There is a soft lining on the inside that the listing describes as sheepskin-like, and there is thickening through the middle where the lift happens, which matters because that is the part pressed against her belly. The whole thing weighs 14.88 ounces according to the listing, so it is not something I notice carrying back and forth.

It comes with a storage bag, and the bag has a drawstring closure. The package measures 9.88 by 4.17 by 4.09 inches, which tells you how small it folds down. Mine lives on a hook by the back door most days, but for vet visits it goes in the bag and then in the back of the 2018 Outback, where it takes up less room than a pair of winter gloves.

It is machine washable, which I have used more than I expected to. A sling that sits against a dog's belly picks up hair and yard dirt. Five months in, mine has been through the wash several times and the lining has held up fine. I let it air dry on the porch rail.

What it is not: it is not a cart, it is not a set of wheels, and it is not something the dog wears around the house. There is no frame and nothing that stands up on its own. It is a strap with padding on it, and your hands do the work. That is the entire design, and I suspect that is why it has lasted.

Getting It Under Her Without a Wrestling Match

The first week was not graceful. Maple is a patient dog but she is not a stupid one, and she knew that thing coming toward her belly meant something was about to change. I made the mistake of approaching from the side, which made her turn to watch me, which turned the whole operation into a moving target. What worked was standing directly behind her, letting her see the sling first, and giving her a moment.

The sequence that works for us: she stands. I crouch behind her, fold the sling lengthwise, and slide it under her from behind with the handles coming up on either side of her hindquarters. I do not pull it forward past her ribs. Then I stand, take a handle in each hand, and lift straight up with my knees. She pushes off. I follow her up rather than hauling her up, and I let the tension go the second her feet are under her.

The mistakes I made, in case they save you the same trouble. I lifted too high at first, which took her back feet off the ground and frightened her. I lifted too fast, which made her scramble. And I once tried to use it to steer her sideways toward her bed, which is not what it is for and which she answered by simply sitting down.

The towel worked. The LOOBANI worked better, and better mattered, because it let me put both hands on something solid instead of fighting a bunched knot of cotton.

Five Months In: What Changed and What Didn't

What changed is mostly on my end. My back does not ache by nine in the morning anymore. I can get her up and out for the morning yard trip without bracing myself against the door frame first. That sounds like a small thing. It is not a small thing when you are sixty-five, you have one dog, and the house is quiet all day.

What changed with Maple is smaller and harder to describe. In June she fought the sling. In November she stands and waits for it on the mornings she needs it. She has stopped trying to take the three back steps in one jump, which she was doing in the spring and which used to make my stomach drop. Since the ramp arrived in August it handles the steps on most days, and the LOOBANI comes out on her stiff mornings and for the floor.

Her days have a shape now. Mornings are the worst of it, always have been. By mid-morning she moves like a dog five years younger, and by evening she is slower again but steadier than she was at breakfast. That pattern has not changed in five months. What changed is that the worst twenty minutes of her day no longer involve me hauling on her hips.

What did not change is the arthritis. Dr. Amari was clear with me in February and I will be clear with you: nothing I hang on a hook by the back door treats or reverses anything. The sling is a way to help her stand. It is not a way to make her hips better. If your dog is in pain, that is a conversation for your vet, not for a product page.

One more thing about the floor. In April, before any of this, Maple's back legs splayed on the oak hall floor one morning and she went down. She was not hurt and it has not happened since, but it is why I bought the TigerToes socks in May and why the hall is the part of this house I watch most carefully. A sling under the belly is good for lifting. It is not traction. Nothing about the LOOBANI keeps her feet from sliding.

Where It Doesn't Help

It does nothing for the front end. Maple's left elbow is arthritic too, and there are mornings when her front legs are the problem. A rear sling under the belly cannot help with that, and if I lift when the front is the weak part she simply leans forward. On those mornings I let her set the pace and we take a shorter trip to the fence and back.

It also will not help a dog who cannot bear weight at all. If your dog's back legs are fully down, this is not a wheelchair and it is not a substitute for one. What it does is assist a dog who can still push off but needs steadiness and a lift. The difference between those two situations is worth asking your vet about directly, and it is a difference I would not want anyone guessing at from a listing.

And it is not something you leave on. It goes on, she gets up, it comes off. That is the design and I would not want it otherwise, but if you are looking for something the dog wears all day, this is the wrong piece of gear and you will be disappointed.

Who This Is For

This is for the person with a large dog whose back end is the failing part. A dog who can still push off, still wants the yard, still gets to the door on her own, but who needs a hand getting the hindquarters up and steady. At 74 pounds Maple is on the smaller side of what I would call a large dog, and the X-Large is the size I ordered and it fits her. If you are lifting a dog this size several times a day and your own back has started complaining, this is a sensible thing to own.

It is also for the person who has been improvising. I used a bath towel for a few days and I understand exactly why people do it. The towel is already in the house and it seems like it ought to be enough. But it slides and it bunches and it is hard on the hands, and if you are doing this twice a day for months, the gap between a towel and a padded sling with handles is the gap between something you dread and something you do without thinking about it.

Who Should Skip It

Skip it if your dog cannot bear weight on the back legs at all. That is a wheelchair conversation and a vet conversation, and a belly sling will not cover it. Skip it if the problem is the front end, or if the problem is slipping on smooth floors, because this does neither of those jobs. And skip it if your dog is small enough to pick up with one arm, because at that size you will just pick her up.

And skip it if what you are really after is a diagnosis. I bought this in June with a diagnosis already in hand from February. If your dog is slowing down and you do not know why, the sling can wait. Dr. Amari is the one who told me what was wrong with Maple. All the sling has ever done is help me help her stand up.