LOOBANI Dog Lift Harness Honest Review

I have had big dogs my whole life, and I have learned to be suspicious of anything sold for an old dog's back end. Most of it is a strap, a photograph and a promise. So when I tell you the LOOBANI Dog Lift Harness earned the hook by my back door, understand that hook was not easy to earn. Waylon is my yellow Lab. He turned 11 in March, he weighs 68 pounds, and he is slower than he used to be. Last October his back legs slid out from under him on my kitchen hardwood one morning. That same week he stopped at the back of my CR-V and looked at me instead of jumping in.

I am not a veterinarian. I am a retired school bus dispatcher in St. Charles, Missouri, and I have one dog. Before I changed anything about Waylon's routine I asked Dr. Reyes at our regular clinic, and I would ask you to do the same before you buy a sling, a ramp or a bottle of anything. What follows is not advice for your dog. It is what I saw in mine over eight months, including the parts of this thing that still irritate me every morning.

What It Actually Is, and What It Is Not

The LOOBANI listing calls it a dog lift harness, which had me expecting something that goes over the shoulders and across the chest. It is not that. What came was a padded rear sling: a band with a soft, sheepskin-like lining that passes under the belly and hips, handles on top, and a drawstring closure. Nylon, machine washable, and it folds down into the storage bag that comes with it. Mine is the X-Large, listed for large dogs, and the listing puts the item weight at 14.88 ounces.

There is no front chest piece. That single fact decides most of what follows. It means the sling does nothing at all for a dog's front end, and it means the dog is still doing the walking. I ended up liking that more than I expected to. A sling that carries the whole dog is a sling a dog can stop using his own legs in, and my goal with Waylon was to keep him using his.

The lining is the part I would have bet against. Soft materials on a working strap usually mean rubbing by the second week. I checked under his belly and around his hips every day for the first week, then weekly for a month, then I stopped checking so often. No bare patches, no sores. Eight months in, the lining is matted where my hands go, the seams are still intact, and it has been through the machine more times than I can count without coming apart.

One more thing about the shape of it. Because it folds flat and weighs next to nothing, it goes into a bag on the Saturday trip to Frontier Park and I forget it is in there. It has also come with us to my sister's house, where the back steps are higher and steeper than mine, and it did the same job there that it does at home.

The Two Weeks I Spent With a Bath Towel

For two weeks before I ordered this, I used an old bath towel. You fold it lengthwise, pass it under the belly, and take the ends in one hand. It worked well enough to tell me the idea was sound, and badly enough to tell me I wanted handles. The towel bunched, it slipped, and my hand did not enjoy the grip. That is the whole reason I went looking, and it is the only other sling I have ever used on a dog.

I want to be plain about that. I have used a towel and I have used this, and that is the full extent of my comparison. A review that pretends the writer has tried nine slings is a catalog, not a review. If you are weighing this against a plain rear sling with no padding, all I can honestly tell you is how the padding felt on my dog.

What Eight Months of Mornings Looked Like

It hangs on a hook by the back door. Every morning Waylon gets his socks on for the hardwood, then his breakfast, then the sling for the three wooden steps down to the yard. Every evening, the same three steps. He stood for it the first day, which is more than I can say for the socks. He has never backed away from it, and he is a dog who backs away from things he has decided he does not like.

How I use it: the sling goes under him, I set the drawstring so the band sits where I want it, and I take up some of his weight while he walks down and back up. Some, not all. He places his own feet. If I tried to carry him he would tell me so in no uncertain terms. On the steps he goes first and I go beside him with my hand on the handle, which means I am either leaning down from the top step or standing on the ground looking up at him, depending on which direction we are headed.

From May, when the ramp came, I started using the sling at the car on bad days. He walks up the ramp under his own power and I steady him with the sling while he does it. I do not lift him into the CR-V. At 68 pounds I cannot, and my husband Gary has a bad back and cannot either. If you are shopping for something to lift a large dog into a vehicle by hand, this is not that, and no sling is.

Cold mornings are his stiffest. On those I take a little more of his weight and we go slower, and the sling is doing the same job it does on a warm morning with less help coming from him. That is the honest picture of it: a hand, not a motor.

The Parts the Photos Do Not Show

You have to bend over. Every time. Twice a day, and more on a bad day. The product photos make it look as though you stand upright and hold a handle at hip height, and maybe a taller person does. I am 59 and I have a back of my own, and the bending is the single biggest cost of owning this. It is not a reason to avoid it. It is a reason to know what you are signing up for before it arrives.

The drawstring matters more than it looks. If I do not set it, the band slides back toward his hips as he walks and I end up pulling on a strap that is no longer under the part of him that needs it. Set it properly and it stays put. Set it in a hurry and you will be re-seating it halfway down the steps with a dog waiting on you.

Washing is easy. Drying is not. It goes in the machine and comes out heavy, and a wet sling is a sling you cannot use that evening. Mine gets washed on a Saturday when I know the steps can wait until afternoon. The storage bag that came with it lives in a drawer. The sling lives on the hook. That is not a complaint about the bag, it is just how these things actually get used.

The Thing I Got Wrong at First

For the first few days I used it inside the house on the hallway hardwood, which was a mistake for a different reason than you would guess. The sling was fine. The problem was me. I was hovering over him on a flat floor where he did not need help, and he stopped walking every time I reached for the strap. The socks do the indoor job. The sling does the steps. Once I stopped mixing the two, both of them worked better.

The other thing I got wrong was the drawstring. I left it loose because loose felt kinder. Loose is not kinder. Loose means the band migrates and you end up with a sling under the wrong part of the dog at the exact moment he needs it. Set it snug, check it before you start down, and check it again at the bottom.

What It Does Not Do

It does not fix anything. Waylon is still an old dog, he is slower than he was last October, and no strap changes that. What the sling does is let him keep doing the three back steps himself instead of standing at the top of them thinking about it for a minute first. That reads like a small thing. It is not a small thing to live with.

It does nothing for the front end. It does nothing at the car except steady him while he uses the ramp. It does nothing for a dog who will not stand up at all, and it is not a substitute for a conversation with your vet about why your dog is stiff in the back end in the first place. I asked Dr. Reyes before I bought mine. I would ask again, and I would ask before you buy yours.

What I Would Check Before You Order

Measure your dog and read the size chart on the listing instead of guessing from the word Large. Mine is the X-Large and Waylon is 68 pounds, and the sizes do not map cleanly onto how you think about your own dog. Take a soft tape around his middle, write the number down, and match it against the chart before you pick a size. Getting this wrong is the difference between a sling that sits under the hips and one that rides up.

Then talk to your vet about whether a rear sling fits what is going on with your dog. A sling used at the wrong time, on the wrong dog, is worse than no sling. And if your dog is small, this is the wrong product. The listing is built around large dogs, and an X-Large is not going to cinch down to a ten pound dog no matter how carefully you set the drawstring.

He stood for it the first day, which is more than I can say for the socks.

Where It Sits in Our Day

The sling is one of a handful of things I do for Waylon, and none of them is a fix for anything. The socks handle the indoor hardwood. The harness handles the three back steps and a bad day at the car. The ramp handles the CR-V. The bed handles the night. I cannot prove which of them does what, and I have said that from the beginning. What I can tell you is that the harness is the one I would replace first if it broke, because without it the back steps turn into a negotiation.

That is also the honest limit of this review. I have one dog, I have used this one sling, and I am not a vet, a vet tech or a trainer. Everything above is what I saw in a 68 pound yellow Lab over eight months, nothing more. If your dog is not mine and your mornings are not mine, take the parts that fit and leave the rest, and let your own vet have the last word.

Who This Is For

This is for the owner of a big dog whose back end is going before the rest of him is. The dog who can still walk, still wants the slow Saturday walk by the river, still gets himself up off the floor, and just needs a hand on three steps or at the back of the car. It is for someone willing to bend twice a day and who would rather the dog do the work than be carried.

It is also for the owner who has already tried the free version. A folded towel under the belly will tell you in about a week whether a sling is the right kind of help for your dog. If the towel helps and the only real problem is your grip, this solves your grip.

Who Should Skip It

Skip it if your dog cannot stand, if he is recovering from something and your vet has given you specific instructions that do not include a sling, or if he is a small dog. Skip it if your own back will not tolerate the bending twice a day, because you will stop using it and a sling in a drawer helps nobody. Skip it if what you want is a full harness that goes around the chest, because that is a different product and this one will disappoint you.

And skip it if you are hoping a sling is the thing that turns your dog around. It is a tool for a hard morning. It is not a fix for an old dog, and anybody who tells you otherwise is selling, not helping.