Loobani Dog Sling Review: Long-Term Use with a Heavy Dog

The morning I finally bought this sling, Duchess sat down on the second porch step and quit. Not stubborn. Out of ideas. Her back legs had slid out from under her on a patch of ice and she could not get them back underneath herself, and I was standing there at six in the morning in a bathrobe with my forearms under a sixty-four pound Labrador, trying to work out how a man lifts a dog without wrecking his own back in the process.

That was last January. The LOOBANI rear support sling showed up a few days later and it has hung on a hook by the back door ever since. Ten months. Ice, sleet, mud, a February I would rather not relive, and a nine-year-old yellow Lab with hip dysplasia and arthritis in both hips. I have a clear enough picture now of what this thing does and, just as useful, where it stops.

How I've Used It

I ordered the size Large. Duchess runs about sixty-four pounds, and the listing puts Large at fifteen to thirty kilograms, which is just under thirty-three to sixty-six pounds. She sits right at the top of it. That matters, and I will come back to it, because a sixty-four pound dog is not the same job as a forty pound dog when her back end gives out.

For the first two months I used it mostly for the three back porch steps and for ice. In March I bought a folding ramp for the truck, and after that the sling's job narrowed down to the steps, the barn apron when it glazes over, and the last ten minutes of a long day when she has been on the concrete too long and her hips are stiff. It goes on in about five seconds. One hand on her collar, one hand working the strap.

Before the LOOBANI sling, I tried the things a man tries before he buys something. I looped a bath towel under her belly and held both ends, which works for about four steps and then the towel rolls and your grip goes with it. I tried a wide canvas strap off the hay elevator, which held fine and cut into the soft part of her groin, and she told me so by sitting down and refusing to move. I tried going up behind her with my forearms under her hips, which worked, and which also put my back out for most of a week in December. The sling is that same idea with a handle on it and a lining that does not rub.

It lives on a hook by the back door, next to the leash. That is not an accident of storage. A sling in a bag in a drawer is a sling I will not go hunting for at six in the morning with a dog sitting down on the second step.

What the Sling Actually Is, and What It Is Not

The LOOBANI sling is a length of nylon with an adjustable strap and a wider padded section that goes under the hindquarters. The lining is a soft, sheepskin-like material, and the whole thing folds into a storage bag that comes with it. It weighs about seven ounces, so you do not notice carrying it, and it is machine washable, which matters more than you would think when your dog's back end is the part that needs help.

What it is not: it is not a harness, it does not carry her, and it does not treat anything. It is a handle. I take up the slack, she takes a step, I take up the slack again. My arm does a little of the work her hips used to do. That is the whole trick, and it works because a dog that can get her feet under her will usually keep walking once she is up. It is also the reason it will never replace a diagnosis. Our vet is the one who told me at age seven what was wrong with her hips and what to expect from here. The sling is what I do about the stairs in the meantime.

Fit on a 64-Pound Dog at the Top of the Size Range

Here is the honest limit. Large is listed for fifteen to thirty kilograms. Duchess is at the very top of that. On her, the padded section sits under her hindquarters and the strap runs up over her back at an angle I can hold with my right hand while my left hand stays on her collar. The strap adjusts long enough that I am not bent double at the bottom of the steps, which was the thing I was most worried about, given how much of my day I already spend hunched over equipment.

I measured her before ordering, running a soft tape around the widest part of her hindquarters just in front of the hip bones, and got thirty-one inches. That put her inside the listed weight range but at the top of it, and the adjuster told the rest of the story. With the strap let out close to full length, the padded panel sits where it needs to sit and I can stand upright on the step above her. Taken in three or four inches for a smaller dog, that same sling would put the handle down near her back instead of up at my hand. That is what a weight range means in practice on a sling: how much strap is left over for the person holding it.

If your dog is well over sixty-six pounds, the listed range does not cover him and I would not order this size and hope. The geometry on a much bigger dog is a different problem, and a sling that fits Duchess would be asked to take more weight than it is built for. Weigh the dog, read the range, then order. And if your dog is under thirty-three pounds, the Large is going to be more fabric than dog.

The Three Porch Steps on an Icy Morning

Nine mornings out of ten the sling stays on the hook and Duchess does the steps on her own. The tenth morning is the one I bought it for. Ice on the concrete, or a wet night followed by a hard freeze, and she stands at the top of those three back steps and looks at them the way I look at a frozen gate latch. I loop the sling under her, take the strap, and we go down together. She does not fight it. She was used to it inside a few days, and by the end of the first week she was walking into the loop on her own, because she had worked out that the loop means the steps are going to be easy.

The one I remember was the second week of February, six below and everything glazed, and she went down on the top step with her front paws already reaching for the next one. I got the sling under her from the side, which is the only way when a dog is already sitting, took the strap, and stood on the step below her so the pull came up and back instead of forward. She got her front feet down, then her back, and we did the other two steps one at a time with me counting them out loud like an idiot. Two minutes, maybe. Without the sling it would have been me carrying her, and I would have been on the couch for two days afterward.

Going up is the harder direction and the one where the sling earns its keep. Headed down, she is mostly managing her own weight. Headed up, she needs a few pounds of help at the right moment, and the right moment is not the same on every step. What ten months has taught me is to take the slack out and then not pull. If I pull, she stops, because the pressure under her tells her she is falling. If I keep the strap snug and let her set the pace, she climbs.

If I pull, she stops, because the pressure under her tells her she is falling. If I keep the strap snug and let her set the pace, she climbs.

Ten Months Later: What Held Up

The LOOBANI sling's nylon has not frayed and the stitching where the strap meets the panel is still intact, which after ten months of Michigan weather and monthly washing is saying something. I wash it about once a month, more in mud season, and it comes out of the machine looking like it went in. The lining has flattened a little where her hip bones sit. Not worn through. Flattened. I expect that to go before anything else does, and I expect it to take another year.

Folded, it measures roughly eight by five by four inches, about the size of a hardback book, and the reason I know that is I checked the package when it arrived before I put the storage bag in the truck box. The adjuster has not slipped once in ten months. I keep expecting it to, the way cheap hardware does on a tie-down strap, but it has held where I set it. The stitch line where the strap takes the load is the part I watch, since that is where anything I own eventually fails, and when I had it out in the daylight last week there was no separation and no thinning along that joint.

The storage bag went out to the truck box in the first month and I have not seen it since. That is not a complaint. The sling hangs by the door where I can reach it in the dark, which is the only place it is worth keeping. Folded in a bag it would be tidy and useless.

Where It Falls Short

It occupies a hand. That is the thing nobody tells you about any sling. You cannot carry a feed bucket and use it at the same time, so on barn mornings it is one trip for the dog and a second trip for the bucket. Fine. It is just not nothing.

It also does not solve the truck. I used it for loading her into the back seat of the crew cab for about two months and it was awkward in a way the ramp later was not. A sixty-four pound dog leaning away from you while you hold a strap in one hand is not a job I would want to do every week. It was a bridge until I got the ramp. I would not want it as the permanent answer for a vehicle.

And it will not fix a dog that panics. Duchess stood still for it from the first try, which is luck as much as anything. A dog that fights a harness will fight this. A dog that goes down in the hind end and stays down needs our vet, not a piece of nylon. If she had gone down and stayed down last January, I would have been on the phone, not on the laptop.

Who This Is For

It is for the owner of a large dog with a diagnosed hind end problem who needs a hand on the bad days and nothing on the good ones. Steps, ice, a slick barn floor, the last ten minutes of a long day. It is for a dog that will stand still for thirty seconds while you work a strap under her. And it is for a handler who is not as strong as the dog, which at sixty-one I am honest enough to admit I am not.

It also makes sense as the first thing you buy while you sort out the bigger questions. Our vet gave me the diagnosis at age seven. The joint supplement came first, the sling came two and a half years later when the steps got hard, and the ramp came after that. You do not need the whole set on day one. You need the thing that solves the problem you have this week.

Who Should Skip It

Skip it if your dog is much over sixty-six pounds. Skip it if you are looking for something to carry a dog with, because this is a support and a dog that cannot bear weight at all needs a lifting harness and a vet. Skip it if your dog will not tolerate anything under her hindquarters, since a sling only works if the dog accepts it. And skip it if the real problem is the truck. Get the ramp.

One more thing, and I mean it plainly. If your dog goes down in the back end suddenly, drags a foot, or yelps when you lift her, that is a vet call. A sling is a tool for a dog that already has a diagnosis and a plan. It is not a plan.