The Pawaboo Ramp That Saved My Back and Her Hips

The trouble with a 64-pound dog is that you can still pick her up. That is exactly the trouble. You can, so you do, and nobody warns you about the day it stops being a small thing.

Duchess is a 9-year-old yellow Lab. Our vet found hip dysplasia and early arthritis in both hips when she was 7. She rises off the pole barn concrete slower than she used to, she takes the three back porch steps one at a time, and somewhere around her eighth year she quit jumping into my pickup. I noticed the truck last.

So for about a year I lifted her. Front paws on the back seat, hand under the hindquarters, up and in. Sixty-four pounds is not a bale of hay, but it is not nothing either, and I make my living out of a pole barn, so my back was already a standing complaint.

In February it went out for three days. My wife did the lifting that week and she is not built for it any better than I am. In March I bought a Pawaboo folding ramp, the 74-inch model. Not because I read something convincing. Because the alternative was a dog who stayed home.

Eight months in, here is the honest accounting.

About day ten she walked up it on her own. Two weeks in, she was waiting at the tailgate instead of bracing when I reached for her.

The first two weeks were not a triumph. Session one, I set the ramp on the sill, put a treat halfway up, and Duchess walked around the whole rig to sniff the far side of the truck. Day two, same story. Day three she put one front paw on it, took the treat, and backed off. If you have ever tried to teach a stubborn dog something she has already decided against, none of that will surprise you.

What turned it around was flat ground, a steady hand on the rail, and no coaxing. My driveway has a slope, and the first time I set the ramp up on that slope it shifted under her and she was finished for the day. On the level gravel pad behind the barn she was fine with it. I held the ramp so it did not rock, said nothing at all, and waited her out. Walking it took her about ten days. Wanting to walk it took two weeks, and the treat at the top of the sill did most of that work, not me.

The length is the part I underestimated. A short ramp on a tall truck is just a steep hill with grip tape on it, and steep is what she was refusing in the first place. At 74.8 inches the slope is gentle enough that she commits to it. At 19.69 inches wide she has room to place her feet instead of walking a tightrope. The 250 pound rating means I am not doing arithmetic in my head every time she steps on it.

What it has not done is cure anything. Her hips are still dysplastic and she is still nine. She gets her Cosequin every morning and the salmon oil on her evening kibble, she sleeps on the foam bed in the living room, and she still takes the porch steps one at a time. The rear sling on the hook by the back door still comes out on icy mornings and after a long day. The ramp is one piece of a routine, not a replacement for the rest of it.

What it has done is take the lift out of the day. She rides on the back seat to town and to the vet, and she gets in and out under her own power. My back has not gone out since March. That is the whole of the claim I am making.

The parts I do not love. Folded, it is a long piece of metal and it is not light enough to swing around one-handed, so mine lives in the truck bed under the tonneau cover and I feel it when I pull it out. The walking surface gets slicker when it is wet, so I wipe it down before she uses it in the rain. And a folding ramp on uneven ground can shift at the sill, so I set it on gravel or pavement, never on the grass.

What I'd Tell You If We Were Sitting at My Kitchen Table

Get the diagnosis before you buy anything. I am not a vet and I am not going to pretend to be one. Our vet is the one who put a name to what was going on with Duchess, and the ramp, the joint supplement, the bed and the sling all came after that conversation, not before it. If your dog is favoring a leg or yelping when she gets up, that is an appointment, not a shopping trip.

Then measure the door sill and measure the dog, in that order. A ramp that is too short for the height of your truck is just a steeper hill, and the entire point is to make the climb gentle. The 74-inch Pawaboo suits a full-size crew cab. It would be more ramp than you need for a sedan. And give it two weeks of short sessions with treats before you decide your dog will never use it. Mine took ten days, and I had already written the whole idea off by day five.